


Bluebirds

by LastShadowPuppet



Series: 'cause our time's gone inside out I don't make time for holy rollers Mmm, there's only you I need [1]
Category: British Singers RPF, Indie Music RPF, Kaiser Chiefs, The Voice (UK) RPF, The Voice RPF
Genre: (like massively AU), AU, Angst, Character Study, Coming-of-age, Depression, F/M, Guilt, Intense, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior, Romance, Self-Loathing, Social Anxiety, Teacher-Student Relationship, a relationship which kind of destroys everything in its path, explicit content, forbidden feelings, older man-younger woman, perhaps some underage, power dynamics in relationship, relationship which seriously messes with characters and their lives and emotional lives, strong feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:38:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastShadowPuppet/pseuds/LastShadowPuppet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn't want to move to Leeds. Perhaps it had been her Intuition. Forbidden Feelings would tear her life apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

„ _We'll call in sick tomorrow and shake till we can't speak and know it won't get better, but still you wanna see our bodies fall apart and lose the will to breathe and fall asleep forever in perfect harmony.“- Anne with an E, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart._

  
It felt as if lead weights were hanging off her lashes. Brown eyes took in the landscape that rushed past them as they drove towards Leeds. Her attentive scrutiny was only broken when she had to blink. Nothing else could make her take away her eyes from the blur of the outside world. Almost as if she feared that if she would miss the first, bright, colourful,  _alive_ thing to break the monotonous grey which had stretched on for miles and miles.

  
She blinked and kept her eyelids together for a few seconds, offering respite to her tired eyes. It was as if the endlessly grey landscape had performed hypnosis on her. She hadn't been able to look away from it and, as if she had performed the heaviest physical exercise, she was exhausted. Thus she offered her eyes, herself, some respite. With her eyes closed her other senses seemed to become more pronounced. The metallic hum of the car's motor became like a second heartbeat to her ears, the rounded curve and the cool metal, which had been warmed by the heat of her clammy hands, of the pendants from her necklace engraved themselves on her skin. For a few seconds, she took in the sensations in pure darkness before she opened her eyes and was immersed back into the dull hue of day.

  
Her eyes registered, feeling something that was akin to disappointment, that the grey stretched just as endlessly before her and nothing had changed. She noted despodently, that if she had to take a guess, she would bet that even beyond the horizon the grey landscape would stretch on and threaten to overwhelm her with its enormity.

  
Tired of studying the same landscape, which she had stopped being able to tell apart a hundred miled, she wrenched her eyes away from the sights beyond the car's window and leant her head back against the cushioned head-rest of the car. She would have fallen asleep had it not been for the vibrations she felt travelling through her skull as their car travelled over the uneven road.

  
The steady hum of the motor was suddenly broken by a feminine voice. She remembered that the voice used to flow like honey through her whenever she heard it. She remembered longing after the tone of that voice and wishing that when she were older she would possess the same velvet quality. But now the voice seemed as cold and sharp to her like steel. It had been since the beginning of this year, or perhaps since she had told her of the move.

  
She didn't look to the side, as she was addressed by her mother: „I do hope that your new uniform has already been delivered. Jane didn't say anything about it and I do worry about that shopkeeper I gave the order to. She seemed entirely airheaded when I made it.“

  
She didn't answer and the car was once more filled with that tense and cold feeling that seeped through both their bones. Regardless of the circumstances, it had been a simple and harmless enough topic to start a conversation with. Her mother couldn't know that the mention of her new uniform caused her stomach to twist in knots and that she had to purse her lips against the acidity that rose in her throat.

She hadn't exchanged more than twenty sentences with her mother, since she had informed her that they would be giving up their lives and would be moving to the north. The sentences had been little more than phrases, such as 'good morning' or 'sleep well', which she had been required to say due to politeness and her upbringing. Her mother didn't know how much she despised sitting in this car at the moment.

  
She hadn't said anything.

She hadn't told her mother.

_No_. She had guarded all her unhappiness and her discontent within her. Acidic feelings that had been boiling within her, since her mother had told her over dinner one night in the same calm and level voice that she would have used when reminding Clara to call her grandmother the next day, that they would be moving from Cambridge to Leeds. Clara had looked up from her dinner plate, her eyes wide in shock and horror, while her mother had continued to cut away at a cooked carrot in complete serenity. This calmness, which was so charateristic of her mother that Clara should have been used to it after fourteen years, had only served to infuriate her all the more when the shock at the announcement had subsided.

  
She had been about to voice her discontent and her disagreement over the move. She had longed to tell her mother that they couldn't possibly give up everything, only because her father had suddenly decided not to return from office one evening.

They couldn't just up and leave as if they were nomads with no responsibility and nothing to their names.

Her grandparents lived in Cambridge and with the forgetfulness that her grandfather had been exhibiting more and more recently, they couldn't possibly leave her grandmother to fend by herself. They couldn't leave the house. Not now when Buttercup, the siamese kitten they had adopted last Christmas, had finally become used to the surroundings and didn't scratch her or any of the furniture pieces which came to close to comfort for the cat.

They couldn't leave their friends and acquaintances- Leeds had no Sarah-Jane who would hold her mother and comfort her with bottles of red Bordeaux and colourful, chocolatey pralines when it became clear that her father wouldn't return this evening. Leeds did not have a Jessica, who was the only person in this world Clara trusted. Jessica, whom she had told about that boy she fancied and who'd held her and whispered that she was gorgeous and he was an idiot when she'd caught Marcus Smith snogging Mary Watson behind the gym.

  
But just as she had been about to talk to her mother, she'd seen that characteristic glint in the woman's steel-blue eyes. It had been the same glint that she'd had when she'd told her father that they would be adopting a cat this year, after Clara had been begging to have a pet since she'd been five years old. A glint that spoke of pure determination and seeing it Clara had snapped her jaw shut and had lowered her eyes with defeat.

Because she wouldn't be able to convince her mother.

No matter how much she talked and tried to persuade. Even if she would scream all her frustrations and throw a tantrum. At that thought, she cringed. She had never done that and the mere thought of raising her voice to her parents made her cringe back with shame and discomfort. She remembered sitting on her grandfather's lap and his weathered hands, his paper-thin skin stroking her head, while she had been looking up at him with the bright eyes of a five-year old. She recalled his raspy voice telling her that it was never valid to scream at those superiror to you and that she should never disagree with her parents.

  
These values had been instilled in her by her parents and her grandparents. She should always be polite and discreet. Never should she truly express what she felt if it made her unpleasant. And she had been watched closely over the past fourteen years for any disobedience.

  
Yet they had no insight to her inside.

And inside her, she screamed.

She screamed in saddened rage that she was being taken from her home, from the one place she loved because her mother was heartbroken at her father's abandonement.

She cried after the people she would be separated from. Jessica, her music teacher who assured her that she was the most talented harp player she had seen in a long time, her grandfather who could only recall her name every second time she came to visit (she feared that with her prolonged absence he would completely forget his Clara who would play him his favourite harp piece), her grandmother who struggled more everyday at her husband's forgetfulness.

  
All that boiled inside her because she did not dare to disagree with her mother.

  
"Clara," her mother's sharp exclamation raised her from her thoughts and she looked towards the woman. Her mother had furrowed her blonde brow and was looking at her with mild annoyance. Clara shook her head, imperceptibly and said after wetting her lips: "Forgive me, I had my mind elsewhere. Yes, mother?“ The woman shook her head, while pursing her thin lips and stated: "Always with your head in the clouds. Buttercup hasn't stopped mewling for the last half hour. See if she is alright.“ With that her mother got out of the car and went to refuel.

  
Clara unbuckled her seatbelt and did as her mother told her. Yet as soon as she tried to scoop the temperemental, brown-coated kitten into her arms, she felt sharp claws pierce the skin of the back of her hand and she witdrew her hands quickly from the travelling case. She hissed at the sting originating from her hand and looked with accusing eyes towards the cat which glowered at her from within the plastic container.

She soon sighed and dropped her hand, she couldn't technically fault the cat as she was just as unhappy with the move but differently from her, the animal had no qualms about masking her unhappiness.

  
She supposed that she was acting like a spoiled and slighted little girl to some extent. She did feel some amount of guilt at the anger she felt towards her mother. The woman was heartbroken by the fact that her father had decided that he much preferred the company of his secretary to his family and wife of twenty years. She knew her mother loved her father just as much as she had when they had first met and though Clara knew little of love, she knew that if the man she loved would abandon her or stop loving her, she too would wish for change. So she couldn't truly blame her mother for the move. She tried to console herself and quell her guilt by saying that it wasn't only petulant anger at being taken from what she knew, but also fear that rendered her in this state.

  
She was afraid. She was afraid of this new place, of Leeds because it was already so different from what she knew. She always imagined that the north and the south were diametrically opposed and from what she had seen until now, her assumptions had been proven more than correct.

She had grown up surrounded by the greenery of the south, running up the lush and lively meadows of Cambridge which seemed to constantly sprout with blossoms and where there was so much colour that it almost blinded her with its vibrancy.

And the north- it was dark and damp and grey and dull. And her heart grew heavy at that.

She was afraid that she would never get to run in green meadows ever again.

  
But that was not the only thing she was afraid of.

She was afraid of being alone.

She wasn't the most social being she knew. She had often envied Jessica for the ease with which seemed to get on with everyone. Whereas she... The only friend she had was Jessica. The girl had often told Clara that she was much too shy, witdrawn. She didn't make more friends because she didn't seem interested and appeared to be caught in a daydream. Her eyes were dreamy and faraway during interactions with her classmates. Her and Jessica had been trying to work on that but then her mother had announced that they would move and now Clara was all alone. She wouldn't make friends easily, if she made friends at all.

  
The thought of being alone, without Jessica standing beside her and continously chatting about something to do with boys or beauty, was like a blow to her stomach.

\---

  
She went to her new school on Monday with the same stomach-twisting fear. The leather of the bus seat beneath her was worn and her tights-clad thighs slipped smoothly over the seat. She straightened her skirt as she tried to ignore the loud voices of two boys who sat behind her, wearing the same uniform as her and who looked to be around her age.

  
It wasn't a long drive to the school, the boys and her got off two stations after she had gotten in the bus and silently she looked forward to spring, where it would hopefully be warmer and she would be able to ride her bike to school.

She entered the grey, squat building behind the two boys who were still chatting animatedly but lost them as soon as they turned around a corner and she had to continue going straight in the direction of the secretary.

  
She was bumped into during her way and more often than not she would feel the heat of gazes on her from students who hadn't seen her before and figured that she was a new student. In her head, she cursed the abruptness of her mother. Moving schools would have been bad enough as it is, but having to start a new school midterm was even worse. At the start of term there would have likely been other new students and she wouldn't have stuck out like a sore thumb.

  
She gave a low exhale when she saw a wooden door above which a sign reading 'Secretary' hung. She gave a soft knock on the wooden door and when she heard a female voice state 'Enter', she grasped the iron handle, the metal cool beneath her clammy hands, and opened the door stepping into the warm room.

  
The room was painted a bright orange colour and Clara had to resist the urge to squint her eyes as the shade was the brightest she had seen since arriving in Leeds two days ago. As soon as she overcame her shock at the brightness of the room, her eyes were drawn, like he was a magnet, to a male form who was standing before the secretary's table filling out a paper-form. Simultaneously, he had turned around to look at the new addition to the room, resulting in steel-blue eyes meeting brown eyes in a full head-on impact.

  
Clara's hands fell from the iron handle and her eyes seemed to widen as she looked up at the blonde-haired man. Truly, there wasn't anything startling or surprising about him. He seemed to be an ordinary man, the only startling thing about him the blue of his eyes. There wasn't anything about him that stood out to her, he had no feature which made him any less regular.

She supposed that her surprise was more directed at herself- specifically at her reaction to first meeting his eyes. Her heart had spluttered in her chest and she'd had to resist the urge of raising her hands to her chest at the sudden abnormality in her heart rate.

It had returned back to normal, as soon as she had taken her first glance at him but she still couldn't seem to be able to wrench her eyes off him, as if something about him held her gaze captive and wouldn't give it up if his life depended on it.

A shrill voice broke through the unearthly silence that had descended on her since what she would refer to as _the moment._ She blinked her eyes and shook her head, as a shrill voice calling: „Mr. Wilson!“ permeated through the haze that had enfolded her. And then all at once, she returned back to earth, with the orange walls still too bright and the noise of commotion behind her wafting in through the open door, as the students and teachers rushed to their classes.

But she had not looked away from him, despite her return to living land. He flinched as the voice seemed to finally reach him and he blinked his eyes, looking away from her and over his shoulders to the secretary who was looking annoyed at his previous unresponsiveness. He turned away from her fully, as he stated: „Yes?“

Looking down as the secretary talked to him, she quelled the inexplicable feeling of loss and stepped into the room fully before gingerly closing the door behind her. She waited patiently as the man before her completed his business with the secretary, studying his back. His shoulders were hunched, as if he was unusually tense and about to bolt, but he finished talking to the secretary with measured calmness. Then he picked up a packet and turned to leave.

She wondered if their gazes would meet once more, but he did not look her way. And she studied him as he rushed past her, a brown packet beneath his left arm and his right hand shifting through his strawberry-blonde hair as if something had him flustered.

She heard a 'click' as the door fell into its lock and the room was empty of him. She exhaled shakily and squaring her shoulders while readjusting the leather strap of her messenger bag, she stepped forwards and with a voice that did not seem her own, she greeted the secretary and stated that she was new.

\---

AN: This is the first chapter of the story. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know that not a lot happened but the main function of the chapter was to introduce Clara. However, you did get their first meeting. Please review and tell me how I am doing. To encourage reviews I will always give a few questions about what you could write about:

_What are your first thoughts about Clara? Do you like the way I have written her? Do you like the writing style or are there things which annoy you? What did you think about the first 'meeting'?_


	2. Chapter 2

_"By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top I climbed the tree to see the world When the gusts came around to blow me down I held on as tightly as you held onto me"- To Build A Home, The Cinematic Orchestra_

A soft sound filled the empty halls and echoed. Despite its feathery nature it filled the corridor and was constant in its repetitiveness. It was the sound of light, yet hurried steps.

Had there been anyone to witness Clara Watson running through the grey halls on this Monday Morning, five minutes after the bell signalising the beginning of the school day had rung and even the most tardy students had already sat down at their desk preparing themselves for yet another week of learning, they would never have guessed that she was a new student who had never stepped foot in this building. Someone who had never left the green fields and blue skies that was Cambridge. Clara seemed so determined in her running that anyone watching would be sure that she knew exactly where she was going.

But there wasn't anyone watching. And she most certainly didn't know where to go.

With the help of plaques that were located beside the doors to the classes, she was able to gain some sort of orientation in the foreign environment. She had been slightly relieved when she had perceived, in her quest for her classroom, that the numbering system was similar to the one she knew from her old school. The first number indicated the floor she was on and the number after that was the room number. 

She had to go room 2.39 and she was currently running past room 2.29, gritting her teeth in frustration.

If there was anything that she absolutely despised in the world, it was being late. Once when she had been a starry-eyed fifth grader and she had come late one morning due to the fact that the wheel on her bicycle had been deflated, her fifth-grade teacher had given her detention. It was a horrendous afternoon spent undusting the blackboard-eraser with the rising dust of white chalk tickling her nose and making her sneeze. It was fair to say that she learnt her lesson and was never late again.

She hoped that her attendance teacher might be understanding as it was her first day. Yet at the same time she was loathe to have any rule exceptions given to her. Perhaps if the secretary had been a bit more informative rather than just silently handing Clara her timetable. Had the room number not been written at the top of the page, she surely would have not known where to go for attendance.

She finally arrived at the wooden door, labelled room 2.39. She didn't even allow herself to take a deep breath before knocking on the door and cautiously opening it.

At the disturbance to the usual routine of calling out the students' name and receiving an answer based upon the presence of the student in question, the teacher who was sat at the desk hunched over the classbook looked up.

And Clara was met with the same blue stare that had confronted her in the secretary.

She felt exposed at the unwavering blue eyes and her throat became dry- _in nervousness_ , she told herself. Surely only a second had gone by where it was completely silent and the teacher processed her sudden- and late- appearance. But for her that moment seemed to stretch on and on and gallons of blood seemed to rush by her ear in a noise that rivalled the noisiest of streams.

Somehow a soft voice still managed to get past the monumentous noise and as soon as she was aware of it, she snapped out of her stunned stupor. She blinked her eyes and looked at the man before her.

Half of his lips were twisted up and he was smirking at her, so that she grew hot under her collar. "You are five minutes late, miss Buchanan. In your case I wouldn't allow myself that pleasure, your name does come quite early on in the list." He then dismissed her from his attention by looking back at the book and calling out: "Smith."

Clara stood stock-still with the door's brassy knob still in her grasp and turning sticky from her sweaty palm. She was still awaiting him to say something, to sanction her in some way for arriving so late. Or to formally dismiss her. Something other than the infuriatingly teasing remark he had given her and that she had been somehow unable to process. So she stood still at the door, shell-shocked.

He was smirking again, she noticed in her haze and then he stated: "I don't know how they do it in the south, but here we usually sit down in assigned seats during class." In response to his remark, which he had mumbled towards the class book- he hadn't even had the courtesy of looking up at her-laughter rose up in the class. 

Clara felt blood rushing to her cheeks and with her face practically glowing red, she went to sit down at a vacant table near the back of the class and for the next excrutiating half an hour, she kept her eyes fixed at the worn wood of the table. Anything to keep her eyes off her blue-eyed teacher, who cheerfully announced what would be happening during the week.

\---

The day progressed quite normally. She had been approached by a few of her classmates, who had been welcoming and intersting enough to talk to her. She wasn't able to pinpoint anyone in particular. They had all somehow melded together in her perception, having asked her the same introductory question:  _"Where are you from?", "Is the south very different" "How is London" "What is your name?" "Do you like it in Leeds?"._

She  had given very non-commital answers and had only kept eye-contact for as long as was polite. By lunch her classmates had lost interest and she wasn't approached by anyone. She knew that it probably wasn't the best way to integrate herself in the class and that she would probably end with no friends here in this new school. And it wasn't necessarily the fact that she didn't want to make any friends. Some of them had seemed quite nice.

But she was simply so painfully shy.

That wasn't simply a mindless turn of of phrase. She didn't mean it figuratively at all. It had started sometime when she was eight. She remembered that she had been at her aunt's fortieth birthday bash and all her aunt's forty-odd guests had assembled in the living room to watch her open the presents. Her aunt's house was by no means small. But to Clara it had seemed as if the once almost too large room had become miniscule.

It was too warm, it was high summer and after having spent the afternoon in the garden, the meel of heat and sweat eminated from their skins and people radiated heat like the sun. Especially the two large men that Clara was caught between. Her heart had started to beat furiously fast and sweat had started to pearl her forehead from the unstandable heat of the room. And as soon as she felt that she would throw up, she stood up and left the room. She felt so queasy that she didn't even mind that she was being rude and would probably be told off by her mother quite severely later.

It was her grandfather who found her in the hallway, breathing quickly with her hand shaking. He had pulled her to him and she had hid her face in his abdomen as he had passed a soothing hand over her head to calm her breathing.

After this episode, her mother had taken Clara to talk to a woman who was paid to listen to her problems and whose profession Clara was unable to enunciate at eight years of age. Clara didn't talk much to her. Only answered her questions and always after carefully thinking about how her answer would be perceived. One evening, after a week of talking an hour per afternoon with the stranger, she overhead her parents' conversation. It was at a time when Clara should have long been asleep but she was going to the bathroom and on her way she would walk past the staircase leading to their livingroom. She didn't understand what her parents were saying but she knew that it was about her having heard her name. She only heard the word  'anxiety'.

That was the official term given to her condition. In layman's terms it was simply fear.

\---

She had always been miserable at art. Her teacher back at Cambridge had always told her off and mocked her for her lack of hand-eye coordination. She simply couldn't reproduce what she saw. It was one of her shortcomings and though she was loathe to, she had to simply accept that she wouldn't ever get any better and was condemned to remain a bad drawer all her life.

She found herself sitting at the far back of the art room, beside a wooden mannequin, during her last two lessons of the day, nervously twirling her pencil through her fingers. She pursed her lips as she thought that she'd had enough teasing for the day during attendance. She didn't also need the art teacher to make fun of her for her abysmal drawing skills.

The classroom door opened and she was breathing quickly through her nose and then Mr. Wilson came bounding in. She almost dropped her gnawed pencil in surprise and as soon as she overcame that she had to resist the urge to thump her head on the table.

Why out of all the teachers did he have to be the one who would teach her art?

She knew that he had no scruples to tease her and that he was probably more prone to considering her tardiness earlier today. And she didn't want him to see her abysmal drawings. The thought of him thinking her completely unskilled made her skin crawl for some reason.

Her breathing had quickened and she was pressing her legs together to resist the urge of jumping up and running out of the room, when he interrupted her internal musings. Smiling, he announced: "Class is dismissed!" Her eyes widened, even more so when the students didn't show any reaction other than getting up and starting to pack their things. Normally she expected students to cheer if class would not take place. But they almost acted as if it was normal.

Her head snapped to the side as a male student asked, smiling at their teacher: "Where's the gig tonight, Mr. Wilson."

In response he flashed a wide, toothy smile that lfet her disoriented and stated: "Some place you wouldn't get in, Ronald." And then he left.

For a few seconds she remained in her seat, with her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. She almost expected it to be a practical joke and for Mr. Wilson to come back in and proceed class as scheduled. But he didn't and soon only her and two chatting girls were left and she started to pack up.

The whole way home she was left to ponder how she had never met anyone quite like her blue-eyed art teacher.

\---

She was looking down at her blistered fingers with tears in her eyes. She had definitely over-practised. Truly after having played the harp for the last five years she should know better. Something her teacher hab been quite adamant about was for her to not over-practise, since having an eight-year old with sore and blistered fingers arriving in her office for her second lesson.

She was looking for the little can of myrrh oil in the bathroom cupboard. She remembered her teacher tending to her fingers, while she had tears in her eyes and tenderly admonishing her for her over-excitement over the instrument.

Clara had learnt her lesson after that and paced herself with her practicising after that. But today her mind had been too full with what had happened on her first day. Her classmates who had seemingly given up on her as soon as lunch break had come around, the feeling of loneliness and that half-smirk.

And so she had continued on and on playing her harp so that she would forget what had happened and as soon as she had stopped, the thoughts had come flowing back to her.

She was bandaging her fingers with the myrrh and spare bandages she had found amongst her things and as she sat in the tiled bathroom-floor, gritting her teeth as she rubbed the oil into her sore fingertips, she had never felt so alone.

 ---

**AN-** **I feel that I need to explain the character trait I have introduced for Clara in this chapter. I myself suffer from a mild form of social anxiety disorder and as my favourite part about writing stories is character studies and seeing how characters with certain personalities would interact with each other I decided to give Clara something I am quite familiar with.**

**The next chapter is more of a series of drabbles as we will be moving a bit quicker through the rest of the school year. The real action (and trouble) will start at the beginning of summer break.**

**Please tell me what you thought about this chapter in the comments.**

 


	3. Chapter 3

_"Well I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette, I'm a lifeless face that you'll soon forget, And my eyes are damp from the words you left, Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest."- Youth, Daughter_

"So... How is Leeds and the cold north?", the cheerful voice of her best friend chirped in her ear. Her chest was flooded with warmth and her lips twisted in fondness at Jessica, who had spent the last two hours telling her about her new boyfriend Markus and the trip to London that her mother was planning for easter break. She had to give the fiery redhead credit where it was due. She hadn't gotten carried away by her excitement and had remembered that her shy best friend had just started a new school a few hundred miles away from her.

"It... it's quite different," she mumbled into the speaker and was immediately met by a contemplative 'hmm' from her friend. She started to pick at a few loose threads from her favourite throw, as Jessica stated in a warm and worried tone: "That bad, eh?"

She shook her head and, reminding herself that her friend couldn't see her, she said: "No. No, it isn't bad. Leeds is quite a nice place and mother said that next weekend we would drive to Pike Lake district." Her friend chuckled warmly, most likely remembering her hour-long lamentation of how she would miss the beautiful natural surroundings of her home the most after moving to Yorkshire.

"That sounds lovely, sweetheart. Something to look forward to, promise to make photos and call me after to tell me about it." Her eyes started to sting and she only now realised how much she missed Jessica. It was only a week since she'd last had a sleepover with Jess, where they'd laid in sleeping sacks in her now empty room back at her house in Cambridge. They'd held hands and reminisced about everything that had happened in their short lives up until now in her room that was bare as all her furniture and decoration had already been sent to Leeds which they would drive away to the next day. Jessica cared nought about nature and Clara was appreciative of the interest that her friend was feigning in one of her favourite things.

"I miss you, terribly," she said past the painful lump in her throat. "Oh, sweetie... As I do you," Jessica responded in her familiar warm voice. 

"But now: Enough with the sentimentalities and tell me how your first week has been there in the far north with our brown-ale-drinking kinsmen." Clara chuckled at her friend's request and started to tell her about her first week. She'd not managed to make any contacts besides the few kind classmates she had, who would greet her everyday despite the feeble answer they got. She didn't focus much on this in her tales, despite the fact that Jessica would most likely be interested in that, especially if she had any cute male classmates. Instead she told her about her classes and she supposed that Jessica must have anticipated that because she knew that her friend was school-oriented and had very little in interest in social matters. So Clara told her about her classes- her English class, where they were currently reading Orwell's "Animal Farm", her math and science classes, which were stil her favourite.

"We haven't had art yet," she answered to Jessica's question of how art was at her new school, knowing how Clara despised the subject. "We were supposed to how a double block on Monday, but the teacher left because he had a gig."

"A gig!!!" She had to hold the phone away from her ear at the redhead's screech. "Tell me all about it," her friend demanded. She rolled her eyes and stated calmly: "There isn't much to tell, Jess. I overheard that he's in a band and they had to prepare for a pub gig last monday. That's all there is to to it." She heard her friend's sigh and rolled her eyes as she heard the redhead state dreamly: "He sounds totally rad, Clara. Why can't the teachers down here be as cool?" 

Clara quickly changed the topic to something else. When her friend asked her if she'd met any fit boys, she quickly shook off the image of blue eyes that came into her mind and didn't allow herself even to think about it. 

\----

The sound of cutlery on porcelain was the only sound that filled the dining room.

Her and her mother were getting along less and less. Ever since they'd moved to Leeds, their relationship had become colder and colder.

They hadn't ever been as close as you might have expected. Not the way Jessica and her mother were. But Clara had never felt that she couldn't talk to her mother. Yet now, the more she found herself in the company of the woman the harder she found it to have a conversation with her and the more uncomfortable and tense she felt.

"Have you practiced your harp today, Clara Rose?" her mother's sharp voice cut through the silence and she looked from her dinner to the blonde haired woman before her. The other in turn continued to cut the meat on her plate. Were it not for the expecting look on her face, Clara would have believed that she had imagined her mother talking to her.

She quickly swallowed the mashed potato she had in her mouth and answered, so as to not let her mother wait for too long: "Yes, I have been practicing daily. Ms. Anderson told me that if I didn't practice regularly I would quickly forget everything."

Her mother nodded her head and without a change in expression and stated equally hard: "You are being quite responsible with this, Clara. Well done." Her mother popped a carrot in her mouth and after chewing with careful precision she stated: "I trust that you have been looking into the joining the local philharmonic as I instructed. You might still be too young, but if you play adequately I am quite sure that they will let you be an understudy to the current Harpist." Clara looked down and closed her eyes, without the guts to tell her mother that she hadn't yet informed herself about the Leeds orchestra. Perhaps because she wasn't quite as fond as her mother when it came to joining the orchestra and playing classical music.

But she didn't dare tell her that. Instead she whispered: "I will inform you as soon as I have something, mama."

Nothing more was said after that.

\----

The bell rung, signalising the end of registration and she stood up gathering her backpack.

Just as she was passing the teacher's desk at the front of the class, she heard in a soft voice: "Ms. Buchanan." She froze in mid-step and her spine became rod straight. Without turning her head, she looked in the direction her name had been called from through half-lidded eyes.

Mr. Wilson was looking at her expectingly and as she turned towards him, he stated: "Would you please stay behind for a second." She nodded her head minutely and waited until the last of her classmates had vacated the classroom.

After the door had closed behind the last of her classmates, Mr. Wilson stood up and with a sweeping motion of his hand stated: "Please sit. Don't worry about coming late to your next class. I informed Mr. Matthews that I had a few things I'd like to talk to you about." In reponse, she nodded her head. Only nodded her head. There wasn't anything else she felt she could do.

She took her backpack off and sat at one of the chairs in the frontrow. She didn't look at him, even as he started talking. She studied the worn wood of the table top intrinsically, but she didn't look at him.

"How have you been adapting to the new school, Ms. Buchanan?" She furrowed her brow slightly, surprised at his asking about her well-being. Don't get her wrong- she didn't believe that he was a bad and uncaring person. Quite the contrary, there was a reason he was so popular amongst her classmates and it wasn't for him being callous and cold. But he wasn't... She could tell that he didn't want to be a teacher and as a result, he wasn't nearly as dedicated as some of the other teachers were. It wasn't his true vocation, so assuming that no one talked to him directly, he would assume that his students were doing well.

"Miss Buchanan?" He repeated her name as her attention clearly wasn't on him.

And she looked up at him through her thick, black lashes.

And his adam's apple bobbed.

And she answered: "I'm very well, thank you."

She quickly averted her eyes back to her study. She heard him sigh. "You really are not outgoing, are ye?" She looked towards him to see that he was passing a hand over his face wearily. She didn't answer anything to that. Partially because she didn't know what to answer- No would have been a lie and yes too simple an answer. And partially because she felt that there was no need to answer.

"Alreet, I'm just going to be open with you." She continued looking at him, now transfixed by him. She couldn't look back down. She simply couldn't. His palms were lying on the table and he was studying his knuckles.

He wouldn't look at her.

"Ms. MacLachlan spoke to me. She is very worried about you, Miss Buchanan. You have been three months at this school and you still haven't talked to anyone or made any friends in class. She says that she always sees you going off on your own during break time and that no one really approaches you when you have to work in groups during class."

Her cheeks were glowing bright red and she wanted to dissolve in a puddle of liquid on the floor at the humiliation she felt. She was lonely- an outsider. But having him say all these things was mortifying.

"Now... They may be a rowdy bunch and a bit spoilt at times, but I never took them for unwelcoming and cruel. They wouldn't purposely exclude anyone and I really thought they would take you in quite quickly. But if they are being so unfriendly I'll have a word with them tomorrow..."

Her eyes had widened at his suggestion and she interrupted him mid-speech: "No!" Blue eyes snapped up at her and held her startled brown eyes. The clock on the wall behind him ticked audibly in the silence. Holding his eyes, she whispered: "That's not necessary."

He wouldn't give up her gaze.

And neither did she want to. But looking too much at him was almost like looking at the sun. You eventually had to look away. So she looked down back at the table after insurmountable force.

Then she continued, with a whispy voice: "That's not necessary. They haven't been at all unwelcoming. It's.... I think the fault lies with me." She rubbed her arm through the thin and crisp fabric of her dress shirt. "I suppose I have yet to get used to Leeds." Her lips twisted into a small, wry smile.

Silence followed her confession.

And then: "Well, Ms. Buchanan... I would suggest you get used to the north quite soon. I know it's terribly barbaric here, but from what it looks like your toffee-nose will still have to endure quite some time here." Her eyes widened and her head snapped up.

She should have anticipated the intense dislike he was looking at her with from the ascerbic tone of his voice, yet his disdainful expression still startled her.

He was always so soft-spoken and very amiable towards her fellow classmates. To see him like this- treating her like this was a shock and for a few seconds she was left without words nor actions.

Unable to stand his expression, she lowered her head.

She had offended him. Somehow he'd interpreted her words as an offence and she wondered what exactly he had taken up as such. Perhaps when she'd said that she had yet to get used to Leeds. She hadn't meant it cruelly, it was very different from Cambridge- of course it was a big, industrial city in comparison with her small and rural, flowery Cambridge- but she didn't mean it in a negative way. Surely he had to understand that it would take her some time to get used to it. She pursed her lips, irritation bubbling at her surface. She wondered how he would feel being thrust into Cambridge with nothing more than a mere warning.

She pursed her lips. He surely believed her to be a posh, arrogant, stuck-up little southener, who knew nothing of the world and who couldn't stand being taken away from her honey-pot for too long. He had after all so 'accurately' described her as 'toffee-nose'.

She looked up at him through her lashes with an equal amount as disdain as he'd looked at her with- the thought of it fuelled her on, as she spat: "Forgive me, sir. I shall try better in the future." 

She didn't see him recoil in surprise.

She didn't see him look down at her with a startled expression- like she had surprised him greatly with her reaction as he'd expected her to be teary-eyed and apologetic.

She didn't see his surprise at her tigerish response.

She stood up. Grabbing her backpack with a grip that made her knuckles turn white and she stated: "Excuse me. I must go to class. Mr. Matthews has excused me from his lesson for long enough."

She didn't see him looking after her as she left the classroom.

She didn't see him looking after her for long after she had closed the door behind her.

\----

Term passed without another mentionable incident after that.

Eventhough she'd been a bit more outgoing for her terms, she still didn't manage to have more than a polite relationship with a few of her female classmates.

But Mr. Wilson never talked to her about it again. If he even realised that she still existed. The only interaction between them consisted of him handing her back any art assignments which were always adorned with a large, red 'D' on the top left corner. 

This morning he was handing out the report cards and again he passed by her, letting her form slither out of his hand and float onto the table.

She looked at her grades and let out a small, inaudible sigh of relief. She was able to maintain her grades from her old school. Eventhough her mother hoped for a career in music for her, she still wouldn't tolerate poor or average grades from Clara. Anything less than an 'A' was inacceptable in her mother's eyes.

Then her eyes landed on her art grade. And Clara felt hot and cold at the same time. She couldn't imagine that this would go down to well at home.  

\----

As she'd expected, the 'D' amongst all the 'A's had caused her mother to turn as wild as a banshee and Clara's ears were ringing from her shrill and loud shrieks.

"Inacceptable, Clara Rose. This is inacceptable. Do you think that they would you accept into the Cambridge philharmonic with a 'D'? They only accept the extraordinary and this is mediocre, Clara Rose. Absolutely and utterly mediocre." 

She had to resist the urge to press her hands against her ears and simply drown out her mother's words.

"Now, you know how little I care about art. An absolutely useless subject and a waste of time. And how poor is this school not to offer a music course, but an art course. An absolute travesty if you question me. But I still expect you to make a little effort, Clara Rose. How difficult is it to get an acceptable grade in such a subject."

She gritted her teeth and her fingers started to dig into the fabric of the couch.

"Now I don't believe this can be right. Even Mr. Watson, who always highly critical of your motoric abilities still believed you adequate. Who does this teacher think he is."

She opened her eyes and saw her mother dialling a number on the phone. Her brow furrowed at her mother's actions and then her heart stopped when she heard her mother state, very calmly and collected: "Hello, Ms. Carson. Yes this is Mary Buchanan, mother of Clara Rose Buchanan from Fourth Form. I was wondering whether you would be so kind as to give me the contact of Mr. Wilson, my daughter's art and registration teacher. There are still a few uncertainties pertaining to the grade he awarded her for his course. Yes? Great, thank you very much. It would be very kind of you to make him call me back as soon as possible."

Her mother returned the receiver and turned towards Clara with a sour expression. Her daughter, in turn, was looking at her wide-eyed and in disbelief at her mother's actions.

"Mother... Why did you?" She stammered and the woman immediately became agitated once more and stated, her anger now directed at the art teacher: "Who does this man believe he is? Doesn't he know that he is completely impairing you. Just because his other students have no plans or goals doesn't give him the right to distribute grades to his liking."

"Mother, no!" Clara exclaimed, almost sobbingly. She looked at the woman before her with dispaired eyes and stammered: "I deserved a 'D' mother. Please don't talk to him, he is being utterly fair in his assessment of me and..."

She was interrupted by the loud ringing of the phone and her heart stopped. Without giving her a further moment of notice, Clara's mother picked up the phone and with a frosty voice stated: "Yes, this is Mary Buchanan." She listened to what the other said on the phone with pursed lips and then in an algid tone: "Ah yes, Mr. Wilson. Thank you for calling me back as soon as possible. This is about my daughter, Clara Rose. You gave her a 'D' for art this semester." Her mother nodded her head minutely and was silent for a short moment, listening to what her teacher had to say.

"Now, Mr. Wilson I am quite aware that my daughter is abysmal at art, but I believe that giving her a 'D' is unacceptable. Not even her teacher back at Cambridge who was utterly critical of Clara's skills in his course gave her a fairer grade."

Clara took the cushion of the couch beside her and buried her face in it and resisted the urge to groan in despair, when her mother responded to what he had said with: "Do you truly expect me to believe that your expectations are higher than my daughter's previous art teacher. I would very kindly urge you to reconsider, Mr. Wilson." She tried to drown out the rest of the conversation, and tried to block the thought of how his disdain for her must have been increasing through the duration of her mother's complaints. Surely he believed that it was her doing, that she was the one motivating her mother to demand a better grade for her.

After another agonizing few minutes that seemed to stretch into an eternity, she heard her mother state: "Yes, yes that would be adequate. I shall tell her. Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson. Good day."

With the click of the receiver, Clara raised her face from her cushion just in time to see her mother whirling towards her and stating, domineeringly: "Mr. Wilson has offered for you to come to school tomorrow at 10 a.m. and taking a sort of reassessment. You will probably be required to draw something in a certain time limit. Please do put some effort into this, Clara Rose. I shall not tolerate you bringing another 'D' into this house."

With that she left the sitting room and Clara was left to look after her.

\-----

The clock was ticking loudly and the only other sound was the scratching of the graphite on the thick parchment paper infront of her.

She couldn't concentrate. She would try to draw the blue vase with the canary yellow sunflowers before her, but her eyes would always been drawn to the teacher's desk where Mr. Wilson was sat shielding himself from her with the newspaper he was reading.

Perhaps it was better this way- the other alternative being him looking at her with that look of distaste he liked directing at her. He had greeted her- if you could call a gruff 'morning' and nod in her general direction a greeting- when she had arrived this morning with that same look of disdain she had seen on his face three months ago.

She looked up from her abysmal drawing- the vase looked more like a broken fishbowl and the petals of the flowers did not appear three-dimensional as was required but more like razor-sharp flat blades- and towards the front of the class. She startled slightly when she saw that the teacher's desk was empty but when she heard the sound of footsteps to her right, she quickly lowered her head.

Her shoulders were hunched in tension as he came closer and closer. She couldn't draw. She was close to immobile. 

Then she felt his ice-blue eyes burning on the pale, naked skin of her nape.

She tried to make herself continue her drawing and just as she was about to put the pencil back on the paper she heard him scoff. She closed her eyes as he stated: "If that is the direction your finished product is going, it won't be more than a 'D', Miss Buchanan." 

She heard his footsteps as he walked past her. They become lower and lower in sound as he went back to the front of the class and he stated: "I don't know how your mother and you convinced your previous teacher to give you any grade better, but believe me when I say that I won't give you a point more than you deserve."

She resisted the urge to throw down her pencil and give up. He wasn't going to give her anything better than a 'D'. She should have known. This was an utter waste of time. She couldn't even muster anger towards him. He was right. She didn't deserve anything more than a 'D' and she didn't care to get anything more in this subject. She only worried how her mother would react.

And imagining the living hell that her mother would make her summer break to be, caused irritation to come up in her. If he was going to give her a 'D' the least she deserved was to muster him angrily, she thought to herself. So she looked up after rearranging her expression into anger. But then her face fell as it landed on her teacher.

Mr. Wilson was stood beside the sunflower vase. And to an untrained eye he would simply be looking down at the plant with something akin to disinterest. But then her sight always seemed draw to those blue eyes. 

There was sadness there. Perhaps she only saw it because she had seen the same expression often enough in the mirror's reflection. 

Sher averted her eyes- feeling she had seen too much.

She turned the paper around and started a new drawing. 

Her finished product was... to the naked eye unsatisfactory and showed her lack of art skills. The lines of the tin man's silhouette were utterly sloppy and you could barely recognize what it was. You could somewhat make out that her drawing was wearing the same red bowtie and blue suspenders that her teacher was sporting. And the blue vase with the wilting sunflower were very cartoon-like rather than realistic as her teacher had requested.

A sense of detached pride filled Clara as she put down her pencil and looked down at the finished product. Not at the art because it was abysmal, but because she felt that she was able to capture the sad look in the robot's eyes. She packed up her things and didn't look at her teacher at the front of the classroom.

She picked up the paper and went to the front of the class. With a sense detachment, Clara put down the paper on his table and looking down at him, cocking her brow, she thought 'Fail me then.'

And then she left without another word.

\-----

A week later, she received her new report card in the post.

She had gotten a 'B' for art.

\-----

**AN:** **I hope you enjoyed the new chapter. Please take some time after reading to tell me what you think. Any feedback- good, bad, constructive is appreciated. Your opinion is important to me.**

**As announced this is more a series of drabbles to move forward in time a bit with the story, because things are going to pick up now in the summer break (teaser).**

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/403775922810931164/

**This is what I expect Clara's picture to look like- maybe not drawn as nicely: she really isn't good at drawing, that's not just something everyone believes unfairly. You could still make out what she is drawing, but only barely ;).**

 

 

   

 


	4. Chapter 4

_"And I will wait for you tonight you're here forever and you're by my side I've been waiting all my life To feel your heart as it's keeping time We'll do whatever just to stay alive"- Stay Alive, José González_

She looked at herself in the mirror of the cabin and passed her hand over the new and unfamiliar fabric.

The curtain that shielded the inside of the cabin from the rest of the shop was drawn to the side and she looked over her shoulder at the agitated redhead behind her. She pursed her lips as she looked at Jessica with annoyance, since the redhead had unceremoniously opened the cabin without ensuring that she was dressed before-hand. If she'd been changing, then she would have been exposed to the rest of the shop.

Seeing her expression, Jessica rolled her blue eyes and thrusting the pieces of clothing she had picked out for Clara into her hands, she muttered: "Don't be such a prude."

Clara looked at the clothing in her hands, shaking her head at her friend with an amused smile on her face. As she hung up the other items of clothing, her honey-coloured eyes became wider and wider. The shirts that Jessica had picked out were quite nice and corresponded with the sort of thing she'd wear, but the skirt of the dresses and the skirts themselves were becoming shorter and shorter.

She groaned in exasperation and stated: "Jess, you know that I won't wear these. The hemline of the shorts, skirts and dresses are much too short."

"Just try it on," she heard her friend exclaim from outside. She rolled her eyes but acquiesced. They looked quite nice on her, but she didn't feel comfortable with the length and she told Jessica that quite clearly. But her friend ignored her, believing that she knew what was best for her. And this resulted in Jess buying her one of the dresses and skirts that she had picked out.

Clara was quite annoyed at Jessica's stubborness and for her to have spent so much money on her. Jessica had always forced her to go shopping with her when they had lived together in Cambridge and had always found it her duty to buy Clara a piece of clothing that was much too risqué for her taste, but which Jessica assured her looked 'hot' on her.

Clara was tucking a strand of curly hair behind her ear and was eyeing her friend grumpily as the redhead came to their table in the cafè they had gone to after shopping with two cups of milky-brown tea.

"Oh don't be so grumpy, Clara!," Jessica exclaimed as she put down the drinks in front of them and sat down on the chair opposite Clara. "You know how uncomfortable I feel with you always buying me things, Jess," she muttered while pursing her rosy lips.

Her friend calmly stirred sugar into her tea, as she answered: "And you know how much I like buying you clothes, Clara. You know how much I hote those baggy, frumpy jumpers you always wear. At least, I manage to get you to wear something nicer if I buy it for you."

Clara exhaled and stated: "I feel like I'm taking advantage, though." Jessica roled her eyes and stated: "Oh please, if you are taking advantage I am taking just as much advantage of you. I'm spending two weeks in your home, eating you out of house and hair. I believe we are even sweetheart."

Clara shook her head, her lips in a wry smirk and stated: "You are always welcome in our house, Jess. I am so glad you are here." The teasing expression fell from her friend's face and was replaced by a soft smile: "I'm glad to be here too. I missed my best friend." Her elegant, manicured hand reached over and grabbed Clara's smaller, more pudgy hand.

Clara smiled warmly and listened attentively to Jess as she told her about her trip to London and the sights she saw and places she visited- and Oh! could you believe that she almost saw the queen. She was just 5 miles away from Buckingham Palace when the queen drove off towards St. Paul's Cathedral.

The jingle of the door bell, which announced a new customer entering the establishment to the café's owner, sounded far away and soon after that, Clara saw someone entering the room out of the corner of her eyes. At the flash of ginger and blue, her heart started to beat quickly in her chest and her attention was diverted away from her friend. She saw as her art teacher entered the café with two other men and took a place at a table in the other end of the room.

Clara supposed that it was luck that Jessica had chosen a table at the far back of the restaurant and which wouldn't be in sight when you first entered the room. So she had seen him, but it was likely by his unperturbed manner that he hadn't seen her. Like she was stung by a bee, she took her hand out from underneath Jessica's and scooted back in her chair. She then grabbed the large palm leaf of the plant beside and used it as a sort of shield. 

"Clara... What the hell are you doing?" Jessica exclaimed. She shushed her redhaired friend without looking away from her teacher from behind her green shield.

"Clara..." Jessica tried again but Clara shushed her once more with a motion of her hand and through gritted teeth she explained: "My art teacher has just come in. I don't want him to see me." That was a definite exaggeration. The last time she had seen Mr. Wilson was during her art reassessment. And she'd left him behind with little to no care of what he thought about her. But then her reportcard had arrived two weeks later and he'd improved her art grade drastically. 

And she'd spent the last two weeks before Jessica's arrival yesterday asking herself what had caused him to change her grade. It had occupied so much of her mind, yet at the same time she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

And this fear of finding out the reason had motivated her to keep her distance from him- yes to actively avoid him as much as she could. She'd even not left the house the first three days after receiving the report card. But then she'd realised how ridiculous this was and that she had a one in 700,000 chance of walking across especially him. So she'd gone out again.

She saw Jessica cocking her eyebrow and then the redhead looked over her shoulder towards the other occupied table in the room. After a few seconds of studying the men, her eyebrows raised and she asked lowly: "Which one is your teacher. Is it the ginger one?"  She looked back towards the cowering Clara, who nodded in affirmation.

Her lips coated in pink, shiny lipgloss twisted into a wide smile and her friend stated, exuberantly: "Well, well... Va va voom, Claire-bear." Her eyes widened when she saw that her friend's loud voice had caused one of Mr. Wilson's companions to look towards them, and she whispered frantically: "Keep your voice down, Jess. I don't want him to see me."

"Gosh I can't imagine why. If I had a teacher with such dreamy blue eyes, I would want him to see me as much as he could. I'm so jelly at the moment, I can't believe how lucky you are to have such a fit teacher," Jessica stated dreamly while resting her chin on the palm of her hand.

Something dangerous and caustic bubbled within her. In response to this and forgetting the repercusions, Clara rose quite abruptly causing the back of her chair to hit the wall behind her with a metallic and reverberating 'bang'. Clara closed her eyes in irritation at the same moment as the other occupants in the room focused their attention on her. 

With as much dignity as she could, while painfully aware of the blue eyes which now rested on her, she picked up her messenger bag and left the café without a glance towards her teacher as she walked briskly by his table.

Only when she arrived outside did she take a deep breath of air and realised that she hadn't breathed since he had come walking into the café. She leant against the outside wall of the building and suddenly Jessica came to a stand before her.

The redhead was looking down at her fiercely and with her hand stemmed against her hips asked: "What was that all about, Clara?" She passed her hands wearily over her face and pushing herself off the wall with her hands, she started to walk towards their bus stop.

Jessica was still bickering beside her and Clara asked: "Do you ever grow tired of the sound of your own voice?" Jessica whirled towards her and seeing her friend's cynical expression, she sighed and asked: "What happened back there, Clara? Why were you so nervous?"

Clara shrugged her shoulder and not wanting to delve too deep into something she didn't really understand herself she stated: "I just didn't want to see my teacher during break that's all. And I'm pretty sure that he wasn't too keen on seeing me either."

A few seconds of silence followed from that and then Jessica emitted a contemplative 'hmmm'. Clara looked up at her taller friend and the redhead stated with a small, knowing smirk: "That's rather odd. From the look he threw at you, I didn't really think he minded seeing you... I'd even go as far as saying that he was quite keen seeing you."

Her friend's words made her freeze to the spot, her brown eyes wide in shock. Not taking notice of her friend's reaction, the redhead continued to walk towards the busstop. Clara only followed when she heard her friend's teasing voice: "Keep up, Clara."

\----

She was tuning her harp while Jessica was perched on her bed, mindlessly leafing through a magazine.

She tentatively played a few notes and satisfied with the way the harp sounded, she opened the score her mother had brought for her last week and started to play the opening notes from Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp, 3.

She was able to play the first two pages fluently, but on the third bar on the third page she messed up. Pursing her lips in frustration, she replayed the sequence, but it simply didn't sound right. It didn't take long for her to become completely frustrated with the piece. She simply couldn't get this section right.

"You know, I still ask myself why you bother. You don't even like this music," Jessica muttered beside her. Without looking up from her study of the notes, she responded: "Do you know my mother?"

She heard Jessica sigh beside her and she turned away from the notes and towards her friend. Jessica was looking at her with pursed lips and a disapproving expression and stated with utter surety: "You shouldn't be forced to do somethin that you don't enjoy, Clara."

She loked down and with her hands on the wood of the instrument she whispered: "What I want has never really been a factor in what I do. I haven't known anything else, so it's ok for me."

She turned back towards her harp and tried to replay the section. The sequence flowed easily enough and she continued to go through the piece, effectively shutting her friend up beside her.

\----

"I am very glad that despite your friend visiting you still practised, Clara Rose," her mother stated beside her as she was tuning her harp.

She nodded her head and continued to strum the strings with a feeling of emptiness sitting nauseatingly in the pit of her stomach. They had droven Jessica to the train station this afternoon and her friend had returned to Cambridge on the three o' clock train.

She was alone again.

These two weeks with Jessica had made her forget that she was utterly lonely and the constant presence of her best friend now only made the feeling of loneliness much more poignant.

It would be at least four month until she saw Jessica again and even then it was less than likely that her mother would allow her to visit Jess in Cambridge alone.

So it was back to loneliness for her.

Her eyes started to sting and she blinked repeatedly blinked to dispel the feeling. She opened the Mozart score and started playing. She was now quite fluent in the piece and was able to overcome her difficulties with the third bar of the third page.

She had just been able to finish playing the movement without any grave problems, when her mother stated: "One of my work colleagues has a sister that plays the violin in the Leeds Philharmonica." Clara's spine straightened in anticipation, as if a threat was approaching her at neck-breaking speed. "I showed my colleague a video of you playing at grandmother's birthday and she was so impressed that she had showed her sister. And her sister is not only a violinist, but she is also quite good friends with the current harpist. The sister had a talk with the harpist about you and he would like to hear you play." 

She felt as if she had been hit in the gut and she exhaled loudly. Her mother continued on and on, telling her that her audition would be next Thursday and that she had had a look at the Leeds Philharmonica and that it was a lovely building and that she should have seen the concert hall- just as nice as Cambridge's- the dress she had brought for her daughter's audition and that they should discuss which piece she would play. All the while, Clara felt as if the weight of the harp on her shoulders threatened to crush her.   

\----

She was walking along the winding paths of the park before the large, romantic palace where the Leeds philharmonic was located. 

Her mother had told her that the harpist would be waiting for her in front of the entrance to the main concert hall. 

Normally she would be quite appreciative of the greenery around her and how the convolvulus and the honeysuckle and the japonica were in beautiful bloom around her and coloured the garden beside her with endless colours.

Yet the imposing castle front came closer and closer and seemed more likely to fall upon her with each step. She couldn't look away from the imposing figure that the building striked- out of awe and out of fear that it would attack if she averted her eyes. 

At the entrance to the building, she stopped and for a short moment she pondered turning on her heels, hiking up her skirt and running as far as her feet would take her- running back to Cambridge. But as soon as the thought entered her head, she shook it off and admonished herself for being silly. Braving this, she squared her shoulders and stepped into the cool entrance hall.

The hall was cool with all the marble and stone almost emminating an algidness and she tugged on the hem of the dress her mother had bought her especially for this occassion.

Giving very little mind to the dark, ornamented beauty of the place, she ascended the stairs and followed the direction that her mother had given her to the main concert hall.

As promised, she found an elder man with greying hair at his temples waiting for her with a small smile. "Hello, you must be Clara Rose Buchanan," he stated warmly with a heavy northern accent tinging his words and outstretched his hands as she approached him. She nodded her head in confirmation and took his outstretched hand in her own and shook it. "I'm Mark Lampert, the current harpist of the Leeds orchestra. It's a pleasure to meet you." She forced a smile as she stated: "Likewise." With a motion of his hand, he gestured for her to come with him as he opened the heavy wooden doors of the concert hall and they stepped in.

The first thing she saw was the large pipes of the organ which seemed to stretch from the floor to the ceiling of the hall at the far back. The room consisted mainly of a dark wood with a tinge of red. It should have by all accounts looked warm but the dark colour only made the hall appear sombre and ominous to Clara.

"Rosa, our violinist, showed me the video of you playing. It was quite good." She nodded her head and thanked him. "Mind you, you're still very young but if you are as good as you sounded in the video, I would be more than happy to take you as an understudy." Her stomach twisted at his words.

Then suddenly the silence of the hall was broken by the deep sound of a guitar from outside and Clara whirled around. She furrowed her brow, as the sound of an electric guitar was the last thing she had ever expected to hear here. Seeing her surprise, Mark explained: "We're playing a piece with a local rock band for our summer concert. Part of the orchestra is practising with them today."

She nodded her head and looking down at her feet, she tried to hide the small smile that twisted her lips as he told her this, but then disappointment returned quickly as he tried to reassure her: "We are actually very classically inclined. This is the first and probably only time that we will do something like this."

They arrived at the stage and Mark gestured towards the harp at the centre, while taking a seat on the piano stool which was stood to the right of the harp.

He smiled encouragingly at her and she took a deep breath and proceeded to get it over with. She began by tuning the harp. After long sessions of discussion with her mother, they had agreed that she would play Debussy's  'Clair de Lune' as it was the piece she knew best and had performed before. 'Challenging yourself with something new is by all means a virtue, but you should probably be comfortable with what you play,' her mother had stated quite ademantly.

She rested her fingers on the tense strings of the harp and allowed them to breath over the strings as she plucked the opening notes to Debussy's piece. 

She played the first minute of the familiar melody without any interuptions or incidents, but then suddenly her fingers froze and she no longer knew how to go on. Silence fell quite suddenly and replaced the soft melody. She was staring in front of herself with wide eyes. 

She truly didn't know how to go on. It wasn't even an attempt to boycott herself- and if it was it was from the deepest recesses of her subconscious. She just didn't know how to continue.

So she stood there for minutes like an ice-figure without any sort of motion.

"Clara.." she was raised from her stupor by the male voice beside her and figuring she needed to do something, she started playing a new melody.

This wasn't by any means an old piece. Truly it was the most recent one she had ever played. It was one of her favourite songs. She played the soft tender melody- much softer and much more tender than 'Clair de Lune'- and then she sang in a clear voice, the tone of her voice just as soft as the melody: " _ **Sing me to sleep, I'm tired and I, I want to go to bed."**_

Her frantic heart calmed as she sang the familiar words. Words that she had replayed thousands of times and that each time she had listened to with the same amount of dedication.

_**"Don't feel bad for me, I want you to know, deep in the cell of my heart, I will feel so glad to go."** _

Her voice was nowhere near as perfectly imperfect as Morrisey's but she liked how the light and high tone of her voice sounded with the soft melody she played from her harp.

_**"There is another world, There is better world, ah there must be"** _

She closed her eyes as she remembered showing Jessica this song as they both lay on her favourite throw on the floor while they watched the rain beating down on the roof window from her house. The sky was grey and the sound of the rain almost threatened to drown out the music but she had closed her eyes and the song had flowed through her.

And her heart followed the rhythm. Just as it did now. Every strum of the string was the beat of her heart.

\----  

She shook Mark's hand and he smiled down at her and stated amiably: "Thank you very much for coming and playing for me, Clara. I will be in touch, alreet."

She nodded her head and after saying goodbye, she made her way outside.

She allowed the audition to go through her head. She didn't think it went well. Infact, she was more than sure that Mark would not be calling her with an acceptance. She had not played her classical piece well but instead played an adaptation of an 80's song.

He wouldn't take her on as an understudy, especially after having mentioned how classical-music oriented they were.    

The outcome wasn't the worst for her, personally. She didn't want to join a philharmonic orchestra. At least not now and she doubted she would later on as well. But her mother was fixated on the idea and she worried about the consequences that her failure would have. Her mother would freak out.

As she stepped outside she groaned in worry and she was absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't notice her running into a person until she felt the impact of her body with another.

She was put off balance and the only thing that prevented her falling backwards were a set of warm hands which held her by the shoulders.

"Woah," she heard a soft, warm and strangely familiar voice utter. She opened her eyes and was looking straight into her teacher's warm eyes. Her eyes widened and she asked herself why it seemed that she was always running into him- where was that blasted 1 in 700,000 chance?

Looking into his eyes, she wondered if she only imagined them softening as his gaze met hers, she heard him state: "Careful there, Clara." The surprise of running into him overshadowed the fact that this was the first time he had called her by her Christian name, though she would realise that soon enough later.

She whispered through a haze: "What are you doing here?" His lips twisted into a small smile and she was momentarily transfixed by them. Only through a haze did she hear him as he explained: "Our band, mine and my mates' is doing a gig with the orchestra. We came to practice." She nodded her head, more in acknowledgment than understanding.

Her mind seemed like mush.

He smiled down at her and stated warmly: "You are a beautiful singer, Clara."

She looked up at him questioningly and muttered: "How...?"

He explained: "Me and Nick, my mate snuck into the concert hall for a bit of a break and we sort of watched your audition."

Her eyes widened. He had heard her play and then she realised that both her upper arms were _melting-_ his thumbs had been rubbing a constant circular pattern on her skin.

She wrenched herself from him. And she fled.   

 ----

 Three days later, Mark Lampert called her at home.   
  
As she had expected it was not an acceptance. His deeply accented voice explained: "I'm sorry, Clara Rose but I don't think that the directions we want to go as musicians are the same. Nevertheless you are incredibly talented and a beautiful singer. Don't you dare let that go to waste and I wish you all the best."

She had thanked him on the phone and then steeled herself to face her mother with the news. At least, she would be able to put her mother out of her misery as the woman had been periodically asking her in the past three days if she had any news from Mark.

She felt something akin to guilt. Her mother's face had lit up when she'd announced that Mark from the Leeds orchestra had called her- the first time her mother's face had lit up since moving to Leeds. But it had fallen very quickly when she had stated that she didn't get the understudy position.

Her mother had proceeded to shout at her. Clara had endured the accusations and had thanked the Lord when her mother had run out of breath and sent her up to her room, where she wasn't to come out until she got her, not even for dinner.

Now she was lying on her favourite throw on the floor and her knees were drawn up to her chest. She supposed that she did feel a certain amount of guilt about not having gotten the position as the understudy considering how keen her mother had been for her to suceed. But she couldn't truly muster any sort of remorse at how her audition had gone. She had enjoyed the few minutes of playing 'Asleep' more than she had enjoyed playing all the classical concertos and symphonies that her mother liked.

From downstairs she could hear her mother's loud voice as she talked to her aunt on the phone. Periodically the words 'disappointment', 'inacceptable' and 'what should I do with her' fell. Clara closed her eyes.

After the hundredth 'disappointment' she sat up with a low groan and stood up, striding towards her window. There was a large oak tree outside her window. She climbed out of her window and hangled herself along the branches of the tree. After a few minutes of climbing, she reached the ground and was stood outside in the midsummer-night's air.

She would get into so much trouble if her mother came to check up on her in her room. But she couldn't get herself to care enough and she couldn't stand listening to her mother continue complaining about her. She turned on her heel and proceeded to walk into night-time Leeds.

\----

It wasn't that late. It couldn't be later than 8.30 p.m. but the bus was empty except for her and a hooded individual, whose snoring was filling the vehicle, sat at the far back.

She inhaled deeply and leaned her headed against the cool glass of the bus. As her head was wetted by the condensation on the window she asked herself what she would do now. She had left in a spur of the moment decision, which was incredibly uncharacteristic for her, but she knew now that she couldn't return home for the night. Her mother had probably already discovered her absence and she didn't want to know what the woman would do to her were she to return now.

No it was best if she let her mother cool off for the night and hope that when she returned tomorrow her mother would be in a better mood.

Now the only question remained is where she would stay for the night. Perhaps she could try and get the last train to Cambridge, but then she remembered that she had no money on her and she wouldn't be able to buy ticket. She thumped her head against the mirror, thinking 'Damn'.

If she had made any friends in school, then perhaps she would have been able to stay there. But she knew no one here in Leeds. She drew her knees to her chest and the reality of how lonely she was here hit her at full force.

The bus stopped and she heard a 'hiss' as the doors opened. The vehicle was suddenly filled with the loud and exuberant voices of four older men who entered the vehicle. 

Clara made herself smaller when the group were passing by her seat. She didn't look towards them as not to draw attention to herself. However, just as most of them passed by her one of them stopped beside her seat.

She gritted her teeth and tension rose in her. She heard him state: "Wait... Aren't ya Ricky's...?" She balled her hands into fists and bit her lower lip, silently begging him in her mind to continue walking on.

"Hey are you alreet?" She didn't look towards the man eventhough his voice was soft- almost as soft as _his-_ but she still didn't look towards him.

"Hey...," the man insisted softly and she shook her head and stated, trying to rid herself of him: "I don't talk to strangers." It was silent after that for a few minutes, the only sound the talking of the others in his group a few seatrows back and the snoring of the hooded man.

"That is probably wise," the man stated simply and she could almost hear the smile in his voice. This was followed by the sound of footsteps as he finally left and as soon as he was a safe distance away she sighed in relief.

The bus continued on its trajectory. Two stops passed and her eyes were almost drooping with exhaustion. Today had been quite a tiring day.

Suddenly, someone sat beside her. Her eyes snapped open and in her haze of half-sleep she flinched. She almost didn't dare to look towards the new arrival but it was as if her eyes were drawn to the person. And she couldn't stop them as they wandered over. So she looked to the side out of the corner of her eyes and she was met with her teacher's worried face.

She recoiled in her seat at the surprise of seeing him here. What was he doing here? Out of all the buses driving around in Leeds, he would take this one- _one in 700,000 chance._

She looked at him in disbelief as he looked down at her worriedly. He made to open his mouth but then the bus stopped and she shook her head. She jumped off her seat and bolted out of the bus.

She didn't know where she was. It was obviously somewhere in the Central Business District with the loud music coming out of one of the restaurants and the large skyscrapers that surrounded her. Her head snapped from one side to the other and she simply stood now, not really knowing what to do besides that. She took a deep breath but this was interrupted when she let out a high-pitched yelp as a hand closed itself around her wrist.

She whirled around as much as the constriction would allow her to and was met with the sight of her flustered teacher. In her panic- it was all too much for her: her fight with her mother, her night-time excursion, meeting him ( _blasted one in 700,000 chance)-_ she started to try and tug her arm free and she exclaimed through gritted teeth: "Let go off me."

The hand removed itself from her wrist as he let go off her as if she had burned him. She scampered away from him, but as he saw that she would bolt like a young doe again, he called out authoritively: "Clara Rose Buchanan!" The sound of her full name caused her to freeze to the spot.

Seeing that she would not run, his shoulders slumped and he passed  weary hand over his face before he muttered: "What are you doing out so late? You're not supposed to be here." She looked down and proceeded to rub her arms through her thin shirt. She didn't answer him, though she could feel the expectation radiating from him.

He sighed again seeing that she would not answer.

And then he muttered softly: "You ran away from home, didn't ya?"

Her head snapped up and she looked at him with slight surprise at how he had known. "I was young and had troubles at home once too, you know," he smiled at her.

She looked back off to the side and nodded her head, not daring to open her mouth. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw him taking a step towards her and this caused her to scamper back once more and she exclaimed: "Don't come near. Leave me alone."

She didn't mean to be cruel but she couldn't stand being too close to him. His face fell but he stayed where he was. Then he retrieved something from his pocket, which turned out to be his phone. He quickly tipped something into it and then he called out to her: "Catch!"

The phone flew in a perfect parabola towards her and she raised her hands to catch the device. She looked at it with slightly furrowed brows and then she raised her head and looked at her teacher with a cocked, questioning brow. 

"I won't do anything to you, alreet. But if you feel at all threatened by me, just press dial and you will be calling 999. And the police will arrive soon enough to help ye." She was surprised at him and his actions, but she supposed that he thought she was frightened of him- she  _was_ frightened of him- but not in the way that he thought she was. However, she still kept the cool metal device in her hand, the weight of it comforted her somehow.

She looked up at him and he was passing a weary hand over his face and only now did she realise that he had deep, dark circles under his eyes and he looked scruffy and worn. She blinked her eyes as he explained: "I'm not following you, or anything like this. I was going to meet with my friends at the pub. My mate Nick, the one who also saw your audition, recognized you on the bus and he called me because he was worried what you were doing out so late." She gave a small nod in acknowledgment of the words while also thinking that the man who had tried to talk to her on the bus was probably this Nick. 

"Look I understand that you must be completely freaked that we are always running into each other," one in 700,000 chance, Clara thought numbly. "But believe me, I'm not going after you."

Silence followed his assurance and she nodded minutely and then she stated: "I know." Then she felt the need to reassure him: "Neither am I you."

He chuckled warmly, the sound flowed through her like warm honey. "I know," he echoed her.

She smiled slightly and then looked up at him through her lashes. But her smile fell when he stated: "Come on, I'll take you home ."

\---- 

**AN- I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please take the time to tell me what you thought :). As you can see we are getting more and more into the story and as Clara and Ricky start to become closer things are going to get more twisted and complicated.**

**The song that Clara was singing was 'Asleep' by The Smiths (all bow to the gods of Indie). It's one of my absolute favorite songs. Have a listen if you want. It's truly beautiful.**


	5. Chapter 5

_"You're up and you'll get down You never running from this town Kinda think you said You'll never get anything better than this 'Cause you're going round in circle And everyone knows you're trouble"- The Look, Metronomy_

Her eyes widened and she started to shake her head frantically.

"No," she muttered as she saw him look down at her with something that was akin to pity. Indignation rose in her at that and she exclaimed, determined: "No! Leave me alone!" His eyes flickered to her hands and she noticed that her thumb was hovering over the dial button for some reason. She quickly removed it from there and resisted the urge to throw the phone at his feet and run off.

"Miss Buchanan...," dully she wondered when she had reverted back to 'Ms. Buchanan' but the threat of being forced to return home prevented her from dwelling on this and she hissed through gritted teeth: "Don't get involved in something that doesn't concern you."

This seemed to get him riled up as he exclaimed, his soft voice becoming loud and indignant: "It does concern me. Do you simply expect me to walk away and leave you on your own?"

She poised herself to run. She was quick despite her short legs and tiny physique and she thought that she could probably outrun him, especially having the element of surprise on her side. She shook her head and declared stubbornly: "I won't go back home."

She was about to start running, when she heard him sigh in defeat and then state: "Then at least let me accompany you to a B&B." She paled and then whispered: "I don't have any money with me."

He scoffed in frustration and exclaimed: "What were you planning then? To go camping?" Feeling properly admonished for her lack of foresight, she simply shrugged her shoulders in response.

He was silent for a few seconds and then he asked softly: "What am I going to do with you, then?" Her brow furrowed and she shrugged her shoulders. He started: "Perhaps..." Not looking at him she raised her brow and for a few seconds there was expectant silence between them as he seemed to try and gather his courage to continue.

Then he said- blurted out- quickly: "You could sleep at my flat." Her head snapped up and she looked at him in disbelief at his offer. It surprised her that he was willing to let her into his home when he disliked her so greatly. He was worrying his lower lips between his teeth and his hands were balled into fists at his side. Her surprise only mounted as he seemed almost- dare she say it?- nervous.

She cleared her throat and then she looked up at him and whispered: "Are you sure?" He seemed to exhale as his form slumped and then he nodded his head minutely and with a soft smile he stated: "Yes, I'm sure." 

Feeling reassured and with warmth in her chest, she followed him as he led the way. 

\----

It didn't take long for them to arrive at Mr. Wilson's flat. They walked in companiable silence for close to twenty minutes until they arrived in front of a pub and taking the side entrance they ascended to the first floor where Mr. Wilson's flat was located.

She stepped into his flat and the wooden floor beneath her feet vibrated at the loud music from the pub below his appartment.

It was small with a sitting room in which a sofa with worn and faded fabric was stood at the centre. There was a small kitchenette to her right and a small round table with two chairs. The only other thing beside the sitting room where two doors which led to the bathroom and the bedroom most likely. 

Shily, she took a seat on the couch and proceeded to knead her hands in her lap. She heard his footsteps on the wooden floor above the loud music playing from downstairs and he asked her: "Would you like something to drink?" She shook her head and thanked him for his offer.

Looking up from her lap and towards him, she saw that he was leaned against the kitchen counter and was passing a hand through his strawberry-blonde hair. He was looking at his feet, like he didn't want to look at her. 

Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up and smiled- it appeared forced- and he stated: "Well then, best we go to sleep, right?" She nodded her head and gave him a smile that she hoped was reassuring.

He walked past her and into one of the rooms behind the two doors. He returned shortly after with a bunch of blankets in his arms and walked towards the couch. She stood up quickly so she wouldn't be in the way and he started to lay a white blanket over the sofa's cushions. She quickly took one of the blankets and started to open it, when he stated: "It's alreet, you're almost falling asleep on your feet. Just go sleep." He cocked his head towards the room he had just come out from and smiled down at the blankets in his arms.

She looked at him in surprise and stammered: "I thought I was sleeping on the couch." He furrowed his brow and, shaking his head, stated: "No. You take the bed." She was looking at him with a mortified expression and shaking her head she stated: "No, Mr. Wilson. I can't do that... It's your bed, I..." He interrupted her, looking up at her with an amused yet exasperated expression. He told her with a determined expression: "My parents raised me politelly enough that I would ensure my guest was comfortable. You're taking the bed. No 'buts'." And to strengthen his point, he laid his hand on the small of her back and gently pushed her towards the bedroom. The pressure of his hand on her skin effectively shut her up and she mindlessly walked towards the room.

She closed the bedroom door behind her and as soon as she lay down on the bed, her eyes drifted shut and she fell asleep.

\----

She woke up the next day with the early morning sun shining on her face. She woke up to unfamiliar surroundings. Her 'The Smiths' poster was missing from the wall and she couldn't remember the book shelf on the wall to her right.

She blinked her eyes and it took her a few minutes to remember what had happened last night. But then as soon as she remembered that she was lying in Mr. Wilson's bed she sat up as if she was stung by a bee. Licking her dry lips and passing a shaking hand through her mahogany brown hair, she looked around her. But there was no one in the room besides her and she couldn't hear a sound from the outside. Her shoulders slumped and she scotted back on the bed until her back was resting on the wooden head rest. 

She discreetly looked around her at her art teacher's room. She didn't know what she had expected from it. Truly she hadn't expected anything because he seemed so endlessly mysterious to her. Her lips twisted into a smile as she saw the vinyl player to her right.

She stood up from the bedand went towards and she crouched down to look at the vinyls that were lying beside it. She was curious about the type of music her teacher listened to but she didn't have th guts to go through the vinyls, feeling that she would invade his privacy even more than she already had. So simply looked at the vinyl that he was currently listening to. When she saw the sticker that read "The World won't listen- The Smiths" she snapped up and almost fled out of the room.

She was so startled by seeing the vinyl- she couldn't explain what had caused her to be so shocked that Mr. Wilson listened to her favourite album from 'The Smiths' where 'Asleep' was on- that she exited his bedroom quite loudly. She closed the bedroom door behind her noisily and the noise caused her teacher's blue eyes to snap open.

He was lying on his stomach and his head was resting on the armrest of the sofa. For a few seconds he seemed dizzy and disoriented, confused as to what had woken him and probably that he was not lying in his bed. But then his eyes landed on her and they- perhaps instinctively- softened. Regarding her with that tender look on his face, he breathed: "Clara..."

She couldn't tell you her reaction to his sleepy behaviour, she was so fixated by those soft eyes and that subtle, warm smile- both diametrically opposed to the look of disdain he had given her that time when he'd believed her snobbish. Yet whatever her reaction, her expression caused him to sober up. The expression dropped off his face and he scrambled and sat up quickly, while she tried to ignore the cold sense of loss that spread throughout her. More composed yet still admitedly slightly flustered, he stated: "Morning." She whispered it back to him.

For a few seconds, the air was charged with tense silence and in agitation, she slung her arms around herself. She was looking to the side, her brown eyes fixated by a crack in the wooden door, yet she was painfully aware of his every moment or lack thereof. So when she heard the sound of him getting up off the couch, she flinched and as soon as she had caught herself he stated in that same soft voice that had been one of the first things she had noticed about him: "What would you like for breakfast?"

She watched him as he moved towards the small kitchen and once he had arrived at the counter, he proceeded to open the cupboards and look through them. Without turning towards her he stated: "I don't have much, because I rarely eat at home, but I think I can whip you up some tea and scrambled eggs. I also have Weetabix somewhere here since I bought a box just last week."

 Suddenly she became painfully aware of her situation and she startled at the moment of realisation. It was as if a veil had been lifted off her which she hadn't even realised was there. She had been aware that she was in her art teacher's flat, but only now did she realise that she  _was_ in her teacher's flat. He had invited her to stay over at his flat and he had slept on the couch while insisting that she took his bed and she slept on his bed and now he was offering to make her breakfast. And the fact that all of it seemed so normal and  _comfortable_  made her stomach twist into a tight knot. It wasn't right. She wasn't supposed to be here, she wasn't supposed to lie in his bed and he wasn't supposed to want to make her breakfast.

"It's alright. I think it would be for the best if I just went home now." She didn't see him whirl around. She didn't see him furrow his brow at her. She didn't see him catch himself. She was looking everywhere but at him. "Alreet... Just... Give me a moment and I'll drive you home." She shook her head and in a surprisingly steady voice she said: "No, you don't have to. I'll just take the bus."

Silence followed her words and then he started: "Miss Buchanan..." She interrupted him and stated firmly: "Mr. Wilson, you've gone through enough trouble for me. I wouldn't hate to be a burden to you for any longer." At the end she looked up at him with an obstinate expression on her usually soft features. He was looking at her with an unreadable expression, his arms hanging slack at his side. As soon as she looked at him, he turned around back towards the cupboard and after a few seconds he gave a tight nod.

Taking this as his compliance, she moved towards the entrance and proceeded to put on her trainers. Her fingers trembled as she tied the white laces of her shoes. She was done soon enough though for her it almost seemed like an eternity. She looked towards him to see that he hadn't left his position from the kitchen counter.

"Thank you... For everything," she whispered loud enough for him to hear. Then she opened the door and left.

There was no answer on his part.

\---

She closed the door to her room behind her and as soon as the lock had clicked behind her she leaned against the wooden material. Slowly she slid down against the cold surface until she was sat on the carpeted floor of her room with her knees drawn to her chest.

She had arrived in her home at precisely 10 o'clock in the morning as the large, grandfather clock in their entrance hallway had announced. The sound of the entrance door opening did not generate a response. Confused as she had expected her mother to already have been waiting for her with her arms crossed before her chest and a tight-lipped expression on her face as soon as she opened the door, Clara had gone to the sitting room. There she had found her mother sat on the brekafast table, reading the local newspaper. No doubt, the blonde woman had heard her arrival yet she had not deigned it worth of her attention and had proceeded to outright ignore her daughter.

Not wanting to push her luck, Clara had quickly retreated to her room. And now she was sat here and her mind was whirling with thoughts.

A small, warm form settled at her side and she raised her face from her knees. She looked down at buttercup who was lying at her side and she proceeded to pet her kitten's caramel-coloured fur.

To no one in particular, she asked aloud: "What has happened here?" And she wasn't sure that this question refered solely to her mother's unresponsiveness.

\---

**AN- Not much to say. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please review and vote. I would very much appreciate it.**

**P.S.: I have two questions which I would be very grateful if you answered: Do you think things are developing too quickly between Clara and Ricky? Do you like the interactions between them?**

 


	6. Chapter 6

_"I may say it was your fault because i know you could have done more Oh you're so naive yet so How could this be done By such a smiling sweetheart. Ohh and your sweet and pretty face In such an ugly world Something so beautiful. That every time I look inside"- Naive, The Kooks_

She was alone at home when the call came.

It was a late Saturday afternoon, with the setting sun throwing an orange hue through the window into the lounge. Her mother had gone out to buy the weekly groceries, while she played with Buttercup in the lounge.

Her kitten was just returning the yellow, plastic ball that she had been throwing to her, when a shrill ring broke the comfortable silence that had spread throughout her home. After scrambling up from her seat on the floor to pickup the phone, she held the receiver to her ear and answered softly: "Yes? This is Clara Buchanan speaking."

At first she was met with heavy, tense silence from the other end. She furrowed her brow and waited in anticipation. But instead of a voice greeting her, she was only met with the sound of almost inaudible breathing. 

Her heart started to beat quicker- almost as if in premonition and then she repeated: "This Clara Buchanan. How is this?" She almost worried that she wouldn't hear the answer. The sound of blood rushing past her ear was almost as noisy as a waterfall.

Feeling out of breath, she was just about to repeat it for the last time before dropping the phone back on the speaker, when she heard a shaky exhale and then: "Clara, this is Ricky Wilson. I just called to ask you if you arrived home safe." At the sound of the voice, the soft familiar timbre that flowed through her like honey, her heart picked up speed- if it was even possible at this point- and she almost dropped the phone.

But she was able to catch herself and secured her grip on the phone. Her lips parted and she wanted to say something- _anything-_ but no sound passed her lips.

It was her turn to be mute.

She closed her eyes, as a feeling of dizziness went through her, when she heard him breathe her name into her ear. After recovering from this and taking his utter of her name as an encouragement to say something- anything, she leaned against the wall and muttered weakly: "Yes. Yes, I arrived home alright." She leaned her head back, somehow exhausted by the few words she had mumbled. 

"That's good. I'm glad. What did your mother say?," he asked her and she opened her eyes and looked towards the ceiling. As she answered him, a small warm little body passed by her legs and she smiled down at Buttercup, who was looking up at her curious about the caller. "Surprisingly nothing. She hasn't talked to me the entire day."

At first he was quiet to what she had said. She wondered what he would respond to her, if he would respond at all or if he had satisfied whatever obligation he felt towards knowing of her well-being after what had happened last night. 

What he answered came unexpected: "I know what it's like to not be able to fulfill a parent's expectation of you." Her eyes softened and her lips parted and out of the corner of her eyes she looked towards the receiver, near breathless. He continued: "My father never agreed with my wish to be in a band. And I suppose that being a teacher is just a way to get him off my back a bit." 

She blinked her eyes as sudden realisation flooded her. At first glance one could say without risk of being vehemently contradicted that the both of them were diametrically opposed. That her and her art teacher were as different as two people could be. He was extroverted and lively, while she was morose and pensive. Their way of viewing the world and their sense of responsibility were opposite. Yet they shared one vital similarity: They both lived to satisfy the expectations of another. And this bound them together in the tightest of bonds.

She whispered down the phone: "I'm sorry." He answered with a self-deprecating, yet warm chuckle. Then he whispered, like warm honey: "Hey, it ain't all bad, Clara." And these six short words that wouldn't otherwise be regarded as deep or meaningful contained so much in that single moment.

Her heart raced in her chest.

A tension built in this phone conversation. It had been building since he had sighed down her ear as she had first answered his call. And now it was close to overflowing. And just as she expected the first spillage, she heard the door open.

With an equal sense of relief and urgency to end the call as well as deep-rooted disappointment, she stated: "I need to go now." Then she hung up.

She stood up and went to the kitchen to help her mother unpack the groceries.

Her heart still beat wildly in her chest.

\----

She had joined a local church's choir to appease her mother.

When she had told her mother the news about her playing the harp at the local parish over dinner, her mother had quickly masked her distaste and then stated off-handedly: "Yes, perhaps considering your youth, it would be best if you started small."

The blonde-haired woman had then gone on to state how unprofessional and limiting she had found the Leeds Philharmonica to be- could she believe that they were performing with a _rock_ band. It was perhaps for the best that she hadn't joined the orchestra, her mother reasoned. Her talent would have been wasted there and she'd rather, Clara not compromise with such a backwater orchestra considering that she had the potential to play with the London Philharmonic Orchestra if she wanted and worked for it.

The frosty coldness between them had thawed somewhat. But Clara knew that she and her mother didn't get along any better for it.

So this is how she found herself going to St George's church twice a week. It wasn't too far from her house. She had to take her regular bus and drive five stations. Shouldering her Celtic Harp, she would make the same trajectory late Wednesday afternoon for practice and then Sunday morning when she would have to play in front of the congregation, accompanying the community choir.

She would lie if she said that she enjoyed this. It made her mother happy and she supposed that it wasn't all bad. She could play some relatively modern pieces and she didn't have to constantly play church music. But whenever she had to play a solo during an instrumental piece, she sweated cold when she felt the eyes of the congregation solely trained on her. She didn't enjoy performing in front of anyone. Time and time again, she feared that her fingers would give out and she would humiliate herself infront of the audience. But she closed her eyes and pretended she was in her room playing only to herself.

Eventhough she played, she couldn't say she enjoyed it. And she felt such guilt whenever the pastor or a member of the congregation would express their admiration of her skills in playing or her dedication to contribute to the parish.

It was Saturday of her last week of summer vacation and the phone rang while her mother and her were at the breakfast table.

She quickly trudged up in her pijamas and picked up the phone.

It was Pastor Michaels who was asking her to come in today. She furrowed her brow in confusion and acquiesced. She wondered what the reason for the pastor's request would be.

She would later find out, sitting in the pastor's office, before a pale and gaunt woman who was very obviously grieving. 

She hadn't been able to look the woman in the eye, since her arrival as the pastor had told her that the woman- Mrs. Miller- had come to organize her son's funeral. It had been a week since the seventeen-year old boy had been found in the family's bathtub with his wrists slit. 

Clara didn't pay much attention to what Pastor Michael was talking about- something about the details the parents wanted to have included in the eulogy. She hadn't known the boy- Andrew, she recalled the Pastor stating at the beginning- but this didn't stop her wondering what had caused the boy such sadness that he would completely loose hope. That he thought it wouldn't get any better. And as she pondered his sadness, she almost felt perverse about wondering- she didn't know him- almost as if it was a disrespect towards the dead for her to even question what would drive him towards something like this.

Then: "And Ms. Buchanan will be reponsible for the musical accompaniment. She is the most talented harp player there is. Rest assured Mrs. Miller that she will not disappoint. You should hear her play 'Nearer My God to Thee', so moving." She looked up at Pastor Michaels almost exuberant praise and pursed her lips as she found it slightly to bad taste. She looked towards the grieving mother to see that the gaunt woman was studying her sharply. 

Clara surprised herself that rather than feeling discomfort she met the woman's gaze evenly. Grey eyes looked into brown and then the grieving mother sighed and whispered: "His favourite song was 'With or Without you' by U2." Then the woman pursed her lips and looked down. Clara nodded her head and stated: "I can play that."

\---- 

"Andrew Miller will be sorely missed by his family and friends." She listened half-heartedly as Pastor Michaels droned on behind her.

She liked the Pastor well enough. He was cordial and kind towards her, but today she found herself slightly sceptical of him. It wasn't any of his doing. The eulogy he gave was well-thought out and true to the parent's wish and there wasn't anything in his tone of voice that would suggest that any of his words were not genuine.

Yet still Clara found herself cynical today. It was most likely due to the fact that Clara really did not wish to be here. She felt like an intruder. She didn't know him. She wasn't supposed to be here, as his family grieved for him.

The sound of the heavy wooden churchdoor opening caused Clara to look up from the black hem of her dress and towards the new arrival. 

Her heart spluttered in her chest.

Dressed in a black suit, yet still looking flustered and agitated was her ginger-haired teacher who tried to close the heavy wooden door behind him with the minimal amount of noise possible. She was sure that others had noticed his late arrival, yet she took no notice of them.

Neither of the fact that by some ingenious stroke of fate they again ran into each other in what is supposed to be the third largest city in the United Kingdom.

After closing the door- unsucessfully as the dull 'thud' still rang throughout the instution, her art teacher walked quickly towards one of the benches and sat himself beside an elder woman who was looking at him with disapproval clear in her blue eyes. Clara supposed that the only thing which prevented the woman from scolding her teacher was the situation they found themselves in. In reponse to her glare, her teacher gave the woman a flighty kiss on the cheek.

"Andrew Miller had a bright future before him and we grieve the loss of such a promising individual," Pastor Michaels finished with distaste over the late arrival colouring his tone. Then he turned towards her with a cordial smile and stated: "Miss Buchanan will now be play the deceased favourite song."

She turned her attention towards her harp and poised her fingers on the starting strings.

His gaze _burned_ her.

She hadn't played the song too often before but she had practised devotedly in the last week, since the meeting in the pastor's office.

On Saturday when she had arrived home, she had searched for the old U2 record that her uncle had given her for her last birthday and she had listened to the song on repeat. And she had dully wondered, lying on her back on the carpeted floor how she would ever do the tragedy and the heartbreak of the song justice.

So she had practised this old rock song extensively throughout the last week and the end result was something that she was proud of the some extent. Nowhere near as good as the original. But she liked it.

She played the familiar sequence of strings and she was happy when the melody she had practised reached her ears and filled the church.

It was silent and then she looked up and blue eyes met brown eyes. And she didn't look away.

This was supposed to be purely instrumental but looking into his eyes she started to breathe the lyrics. She wasn't sure whether she was singing loud enough to be heard. But his eyes softened and it was enough.

**" _And_ _I can't live with or without you"_**

\----

She closed the door to the pastor's office behind her after storing her harp, which she would come to pick up with her mother later.

She straightened her dress and proceeded to walk out of church and into the courtyard.

The sun blinded her after her eyes had grown accustomed to the sombre interior of the gothic chapel. She blinked her eyes- once, twice, three times so that she would get used to the almost overwhelming brightness. 

Someone called her name to her right and looking to the source of the voice, she found Mrs. Miller walking towards her with her husband, who had his arm around her waist.

As soon as they had arrived at her, the three proceeded to shake hands cordially and Mr. Miller stated warmly: "Thank you for playing so beautfiully. It was a great tribute to my son's memory." After he had thanked her, he looked down. He didn't say anything anymore and his words hung between them. 

She wanted to say something. Had to. But she didn't know what. She didn't want to say that she was sorry for their loss. There had been already enough before her who had expressed their more or less empty condolences and she could imagine that they had grown tired of it. 

So she whispered: "I hope your son has found his peace." Mrs. Miller's gaze snapped towards her abruptly and she looked down at the young girl with a wide-eyed gaze. Clara couldn't tell you the expression on her face. Perhaps her mouth was twisted in a sort of sinister grimace. But whatever the older woman saw in her face, caused her face to crumble and she nodded her head in acknowledgment of her words.

They both left without directing another word to her.

This left her standing in the courtyard with very little direction or purpose. She looked at her wristwatch and saw that there were still ten minutes until the time she had scheduled with her mother to pick her up. And knowing her mother's sense of punctuality, she would be waiting here exactly ten minutes.

She gave a low sigh and averted her eyes to the floor. She spent a few moment studying the cobblestones beneath her but then two shadows appeared causing her to look up.

Two identical pairs of blue eyes were studying her and she felt blood rushing to her cheeks. QUickly she stood up and flusteredly she proceeded to wrench her hands.

He smiled down at her- she was _breathless._

Then he proceeded to address the woman, yet he didn't take his eyes off of her as he stated: "Mother, this is Clara Buchanan. Ms. Buchanan, this is my mother Anna Wilson."

She looked towards the smiling woman, who had a matronly air about her and took her outstretched hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." The woman smiled towards her and she knew from who Mr. Wilson had inherited his honey voice. "Ricky told me that you were a beautiful singer, but I believe that he didn't do you near enough justice." His mother looked towards Ricky as the man's cheek became slightly red and he smiled towards her, slightly unsure.

She looked down and stated with a half-smirk: "Well Mr. Wilson is quite critical towards me. So him not doing me justice doesn't surprise me." She didn't know where she took the confidence to say such a thing and she realised- she wasn't only bantering with him, what she had just said could be contrued as  _flirting._ Or as close to flirting as she would ever get- her awkward, peculiar attempt at flirting. 

She looked up- perhaps her flirting had been so outlandish that he,  _hopefully,_ didn't realise what it was. Because if he did, she would die of embarassment.

She looked up and he was smiling at her- in delight. And her lips parted as she looked up at him, like a puppy, the rational part of her whispered maliciously in her ear and she wanted to kick herself for humiliating herself in this manner. For not being able to control herself before him.

She heard his mother mutter: "Excuse me, I believe that my cousin would like to talk to me." 

Then she left and they were alone.

Almost instinctively he took a step towards her.

She didn't step back.

She didn't move back.

And they were closer than ever before.

His larger frame dwarfed her petite body and she felt shielded from intrusive watchers. Yet this didn't encourage her to look up at him and she proceeded to wrench her hands infront of her.

Larger hands rested over her smaller agitated ones and she gasped inaudibly and her eyebrows rose. The she felt his other hand coming to rest beneath her chin and gently he lifted her face so that her eyes were forced to met his.

His gaze was soft and he whispered- almost in intimacy: "Hello little bird." She continued to look up at him- her brown eyes wide and her eyebrows raised. Her mouth went dry in shock and his mannerisms and she felt discomfort, not only considering that they were in public but also that his behaviour towards her was highly unexpected- not to mention inappropriate.

Her discomfort must have shown on her face, because his expression fell and he let go of her. She tried to ignore the lonely feeling that spread through her gut.

He cleared his throat as took a step away from her. He didn't look at her, his gaze was directed to his side as if he couldn't bare to look at her. And if Clara didn't know any better and he wasn't her teacher- she would thought that his actions resulted from stung pride at her 'rejection'.

He was shaking his head and she could sense his intent on leaving but she stopped him when she asked: "Were you close to him?" He looked back towards her, a slightly quizzical look on his face at her sudden change of subject. But he humoured and shaking his head stated: "No. He was my mother's godson. But I'd only met him once." He studied her and she felt that his eyes had the power to pierce her soul. She sat down back on the bank as his eyes lighted with recognition- like he had realized what her true intent was. The corner of his lips twisted up into a fond smile and he stated: "Like a normal human being, I feel for the family and grieve for someone who was in so much pain that they couldn't find another way out. But I am not grieving like I would over a close friend or loved one, Clara."

She only nodded her head in response.

Suddenly his face fills with intent, but at the same time he looks unsure. She studies him in anticipation as he seems to mull over something and then: "Do you want to get out of here?" She looks up at him, her eyes shining with anticipation, as she silently urges him to continue: "I mean... I am really in the mood for some fish and chips." It was his turn to look at her expectantly.

She couldn't help herself and her lips twisted in a small smile at his invitation. But then she remembered... her mother would be picking her up soon. The happy expression was wiped off her face and she whispered shaking her head: "I can't." In response, he sighed 'Oh' lowly. She licked her lips nervously and stated: "I want to. But I can't. My mother is picking me up soon."

The understanding that she heard in his voice sounded forced, but he was still cordial enough: "I understand. Goodbye, Ms. Buchanan." She looked up to see him turning on his heels and quickly walking out of the courtyard.

Her head dropped in disappointment. Truly, the idea of having fish and chips with her art teacher sounded much more appealing than it should. Especially when she considered that the alternative was being picked up by her mother and them returning to a silent and cold lunch before both of them went their separate ways.

At the prospect of lying on the carpet of her room for the rest of this sunny afternoon with the regret she now felt deeply rooted in her, her feet propelled her up and she ran out of the courtyard.

He was just getting into his car as she went out of the courtyard and into the front of the church. Standing before the church she exclaimed: "Mr. Wilson."

He looked up at the sound of her voice.

Seeing her and knowing that she had changed her mind caused him to smile.

And his smile was brighter than the sun.

\-----

He drove them to a small fish and chip shop that was just outside of Leeds.

She was sitting on one of the few plastic tables at the back of the shop, while the palm of her hands rested on the cool plastic of the tables. She looked towards the front where her teacher was standing at the counter, ordering them some food.

He had insisted on buying her a portion of the best fish and chips in West Yorkshire. Even when she had adamantly and in discomfort asked him to let her pay, he had severely stated: "No objections, Clara. I won't hear a word of it." And then he had bounded up to the counter and started to order.

She was shaken from her thoughts when he approached with two steaming plates of golden, fried fish and chips. He sat down a plate before her before taking a seat on the stool opposite of her.

She stated: "Thank you. This really wasn't necessary." He rolled his eyes playfully at her and stated: "Enough now with the painful southern cordiality. It's just some fish and chips. In fact you deserve much better." Her shoulders bunched at the latter part. He was focused on the food before him. So focused in fact that she suspected he wished to deflect from what he just said. Like it had escaped him unwillingly.

She proceeded to eat the food he had bought for her. And it was incredible. And she smiled at him as she ate a chip. He was wrong. This was just _right_ for her.

"So you're playing at St. George's now?" he asked with his brow furrowed. She nodded her head in response, though she doubted he could see her as he was still focused on the food before him. But this was a question that didn't really require an answer. Then he asked: "Is it for your mother?" His blue eyes looked up at her and for the first time she noticed that despite the blue colour, it was his long lashes that made his eyes enchanting to her. 

She nodded her head in response to his question and he gave a wry smirk and then, shrugging his shoulders he stated: "I figured." Her brow raised and she looked at him quizically and in response he stated: "You just don't seem the type, little bird." She raised her brows to him and then taking the salt shaker from between them she asked challengingly: "And how do you know the type I am?"

He grinned at her- and again with the _flirting:_ "Call me mad but I doubt that the girl who plays a 'The Smiths' song for her audition to an orchestra that is notoriously classical would be inclined to play for a parish." He leaned crossed his arms over the table and leaned his head and his hand and stduying her he stated: "Perhaps I could have thought you were the type when we first met- when you were all meek and shy, but I know you now." She looked at him and she whispered: "You don't know me."

She didn't mean it in a malicious manner. She was simply stating something that was inherently true to her. He didn't know her and she didn't know him. Just because they seemed to run into each other with every single turn they took, didn't mean they knew each other at all. Yet she still felt guilt over the truth, when she saw the hurt flashing in his eyes, before he could dampen it.

She had effectively ruined their lunch, as they continued to eat in uncomfortable silence. And this silence gave way for her to realise that this was a mistake and she wasn't supposed to be here. She was having lunch with her teacher and in her weird way, she had flirted with him.

She had long ago accepted that she fancied her teacher. And she had long ago accepted that nothing could come of this. Not only because he was fifteen years her senior, but also because it was unlikely that her feelings would ever be requited. Perhaps the fact that it was against the law for him to return her feelings lessened the pain of rejection. But the fact that they kept meeting each other in this 800,000 people city did nothing to help her overcoming this silly infatuation.

She shook her head and stated: "I can't do this." She stood up and she gathered her bag and stated: "We shouldn't be doing this." "Clara," he started, but she interrupted him harshaly and stated: "I'm your student. This is inappropriate." His face fell and he muttered: "I know. Good Lord, don't you think I know?" She shook her head and she wanted to ask him why he still did this then. Why he insisted on extending their meetings more than they had to. It was bad enough they ran into each other. But this was torture.

"You won't be able to get home from her with the bus. I'll take you home," he stated coldly and laving his fish half-eaten, he stood and put on his suit jacket.

He drove her home. Though neither spoke and the divide between them seemed wider than ever, both felt the same ice-cold hopelessness. 

\----

**AN: Please vote and review.**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

"Are _you lost in paradise my love, or have you found a home? It's an awfully lonely road to walk alone, But as I searched your flashing indigo eyes, it echoed true That I loved you, That I loved you."- Indigo Home, Roo Panes_  


 

It was three weeks into term and to Clara it already seemed that it would be just as the last.

 

Same classes. Same teachers. Same classmates- except for one tall, lanky boy who had introduced himself the first day of term as Stevie McLaughlin in a deep, scottish accent.

And Mr. Wilson's behaviour towards her was also the same.

He had returned to pretending as if she didn't exist. 

It was like their meetings during the summer break had never occured, almost as if they hadn't periodically run into each other and he'd started to call her Clara with his soft voice. 

Almost as if he hadn't offered her to sleep over at his appartment, where he'd offered to make her breakfast the next morning.

All that was if wiped out. He didn't look in her direction he didn't direct a word at her, except the harsh bark of her last name every morning during registration. Their only interaction was a week ago when he'd handed her her first artwork of the new semester back, adorned with the familiar red 'D' on th top left hand corner.

She'd resisted the urge to bury her face in the palm of her hands and groan desperately. If she wasn't so one hundred percent sure that she hadn't just imagined it, she would have sworn that the occurences of the summer break were but a figment of her hopeful, imaginative mind.

And sometimes when he'd breathe past her without even glancing in her direction, like she was but air, she did question if she had not truly been dreaming.

But last Friday during the last two periods, she had felt the heat of someone's gaze on her and she had looked up into sea-blue eyes and he had not looked away despite being caught out watching her. And his eyes told her that it hadn't been only her imagination.

She was currently making her way back home from the convenience store. It was a late, early autumn afternoon and the sun was already setting behind her, bathing her back in a warm, orange hue. She was just adjusting her grip on the brown paper bag when she suddenly heard the high 'ding' of a bell. Startled she looked over her shoulders just in time to see a young boy, approaching her on a bicycle.

As he came closer, she recognized him as the new, scottish student in her year. 'Stevie' something, she recalled, had been how he had introduced himself. She furrowed her brow as he rode towards her quite determinedly, asking herself what he could want with her. Differently from her, it had only taken Stevie a matter of days to integrate himself in their year. She would be lying if she said that she didn't occasionally watch him with a pang of jealousy as he played football with the other boys or was surrounded by an eclectic group during lunch. Meanwhile she was just as alone and outside of everything as she was when she first arrived six months ago.

She cocked her hip to the right to rest the grocery bag and blew a strand of her hair that had fallen from her bun out of her face. He drove up to her and then in an entirely too athletic stunt, which was followed by a cocky, bright grin in her direction, he jumped off the bicycle and stood before her.

She was very small for her age, barely standing at 5", so his tall lanky frame, which was close 6" towered before her. But she didn't look up, prefering to look straight ahead at the striped pattern on his t-shirt.

Then he stated in his scottish drawl: "Hey aren't you that girl from me class?" She nodded her head slowly, and her eyebrows raised in surprise when he stated: "Clara, right?" This caused her to look up at him and she cocked her eyebrow. Seeing that he had gotten her attention caused his grin to widen and he stated: "Yes, you are her. Little, southern Clara who sings like an angel on Sundays."

Her eyes widened slightly and seeing her alarm, he explained: "Me mum and I go to St. George's. You play really beautifully, even if it is old music." She resisted the urge to shake her head vehemently, as she recalled his soft word _'You are a beautiful singer'-_ then she looked down and stated matter-of-factly: "Well, believe me when I say that I'd much rather play _Pink Floyd_ as well, but somehow I don't think Pastor Michaels would find that appropriate during service.

Then she turned on her heels and continued walking. She didn't see anymore reason to continue the conversation and the eight pints of milk in the bag were really starting to weigh her down.

She heard the sound of someone scrambling behind her and soon enough he was walking beside her, pushing his bicycle along: "You know _Pink Floyd?"_  


Her eyebrows raised at the surprise colouring his tone and then: "I do. Why is that so startling?" She looked toward him as he studied her from the side and seeing the gaze she leveled at him, caused his lips to twist into an amused smirk, his blue eyes crinkled at the corner and she almost stopped, rooted to the ground at the similarity between the two of them at that moment.

"It has nothing to do with you specifically. It's just... Pretty girls nowadays seem to prefer _The Spice Girls."_ She didn't know what to answer to that statement or how to react to his behaviour towards her.

She quickened her pace, but looking at the difference in length between their legs, she knew that she had no chance to outrun him when he seemed so intent to make conversation with her.

She couldn't outsmart him physically, so she thought the best thing was to dissuade him from talking to her. So, she pressed her lips together and looked towards the ground as she trudged home.

The silence persisted for a few moments and she almost thought that if she looked up now, she would find him gone but then she heard him sigh and then mutter wearily: "They _were_ right about you: You are a shy one."

She swallowed the caustic feeling at knowing that her classmates talked about her. But then again what did she expect, she wasn't completely invisible, only close to it.

"I'm not going to bite you for talking to me, you know," she looked up through her lashes to see him smiling down at her gently. That soft curve of his lips brought back unbidden memories. She tried to tamper them down as quickly as they came and spit, almost in frustration: "Why are you doing this?"

It was his turn to raise his brow and he muttered confusedly: "What?" Now completely annoyed, she came to a stop and cocking her hips so that she could rest her purchases and she asked: "Don't you have like a football game to play with your mates? Why are you even bother with little old me?"

He looked down at her for a few seconds and at her tigerish, frustrated expression and then his smile widened, almost conspiratorially as if he knew something she didn't.

"You sing like you just fell straight out of heaven and you like _Pink Floyd._ Why wouldn't I bother with you?" He gave her a last, boyish smirk and then he swung himself back on his bicycle and drove off. Over his shoulders he called out to her: "See you Monday, Clara."

He turned the corner and it was only then that her body was released from the spell that had locked it into place.

\----

Her eyes were periodically drifting shut.

She was so tired.

She hadn't been able to fall asleep last night. There was a heavy storm during the night, with thunder and lighting and despite being almost fifteen years old, Clara still held on to this childish fear.

Last time this had bothered her, she had been able to sleep between her parents with her father opening their bed to her, invitingly and spooning once she had gotten in, trembling out of fear.

Her father had aways ensured that she didn't need to face her fears alone. It would be something that she would always be grateful to him for.

But she knew that last night she would have to face the storm on her own.

Her and her mother were not nearly close enough for her to search for comfort with the woman and she could imagined the comments that the blonde-haired, severe woman would make.

She would proceed to make Clara feel entirely inadequate due to still having this fear even when she was already so old before sending her away to bed. So she spared herself the effort of facing her mother's rejection.

Instead, she had crawled her way beneath her linen, trying to find cover beneath her bedsheets. But the sound was still there and she still shook like a leaf. And her heart had been pounding with anxiety and adrenalin and she hadn't been able to fall asleep.

She fell asleep sometime during the evening, but to Clara it felt as if she had only closed her eyes for a second before her alarm clock had started to blare.

Getting out of bed was excrutiating. Her morning had been marked by her utter exhaustion and her continued struggle to stay awake.

Her elbow was resting on her desk's surface and she supported her head on the palm of her hand, as she consistently had to open her eyes feeling them drift shut. Her eyelids had never felt heavier.

Just when she thought that she wouldn't be able to keep them open, because my god had her lashes turned to lid?- she heard the sound of someone settling down beside her. Her palms came to rest on the desk's surface and slightly disoriented she looked left and right. As soon as she turned her head to the right, she was met with the sight of Stevie smirking down at her.

She furrowed her brow and whispered drowsily: "What are you doing?" Stevie always sat at the front of the class, right beside Michael Calhoun and Sarah Riordan, her two classmates he seemed to spend most time with during break. Clara didn't understand why he was currently sitting beside her in the last row.

He smiled at her and stated: "Making sure you don't fall asleep during registration. I know Monday mornings are tough but I would suggest you save the napping for history after registration. I don't think Mr. Binns really cares about who listens to his lecture as long as he can talk about the Stalin and the Cold War. Plus, I think Mr. Wilson might have it out for you."

At the sound of his name, her spine straightened and she in her seat towards the front of the class, just as the aforementioned was entering the room.

Her face softened once he turned around as soon as he set his things down on the teacher's desk and turned his bright smile towards the class. She heard a snicker beside her and then a whisper: "Now aren't you glad I kept you awake?"

Without looking away from the front, she rolled her chocolate-brown eyes which only caused her classmate more amusement as he stated confidently: "You'll thank me once you don't snore in class." She whirled towards him and indignantly she whispered: "I do not snore."

He chuckled- apparently she amused him endlessly and waving his hand dismissively he stated: "Yeah, yeah, I forgot. Pretty girls don't snore." She turned back in her seat, now lookig down to hide her blushing cheeks from the rest of the world and then overcoming her embarassment she whispered through gritted teeth: "Can you stop calling me that."

"What? Pretty girl?" she heard him ask puzzled beside her. She gave him a curt nod in affirmation and then: "But that's what you are. Everyone thinks so. I do. The rest of the boys do. Hell, even Mr. Wilson does." Her face snapped up towards him and she stood there gaping at him, like a fish out of water. He was studying her reaction out of the corner of his eyes and his lips were twisted into a mischievious smile.

She started, slightly high-pitched: "What are you..." "What is going on there in the back?," she heard their teacher call out and both of them whirled to the front. Mr. Wilson was looking at the source of the disturbance. She wondered if she only imagined his gaze faltering once he saw her at the heart of it. But one thing was for sure. He simply dropped the matter and looked back towards the attendance book. A few seconds of silence passed and then in a heavy voice: "Calhoun?"

They both sighed simultaneously.

\---

They were walking side-by-side. She had her right hand on the right loop of her backpack, while he was pushing his bicycle beside her.

"I meant it you know," he muttered out of nowhere. She looked towards the boy who had spent the day beside her. She had thought that after the stunt in registration, he would have grown tired of teasing her and left her be. But she had been wrong as he had taken the normally empty seat beside her during every period and had sat with her at lunch break.

She couldn't help but admire his insistence.

Seeing that she was looking at him, he continued: "The reason I gave you when you asked me why I was bothering with you. I mean it, I didn't say it to tease you. I think you are interesting and cool and you seem nice. I want to get to know you better."

She didn't know what his confession caused in her face. But she knew that she had exactly two options: She could either walk away from him now and effectively alienate the last person that thought some good of her here in Leeds, or she jump over her shadow. "Say something," she heard him plead.

She continued to walk on and he didn't follow her at first. The sting of rejection seemed to radiate off him and then she asked: "Do you ride often?"

There was no answer on his part for a few seconds and then he asked her in utter confusion: "What?" She stopped in her tracks and turned back towards him. Then she nodded her head towards the bicycle in clarification: "Do you ride often? I used to ride my bicycle quite a bit back in Cambridge. But I find Leeds too urban to do so."

He smiled towards her and his boyish grin was so infectious that her lips twisted into a small smirk. He quickly joined her and proceeded to tell her about his old home at Bathgate and how it was perfect for riding the bike and how he now usually rode on the track from Leeds to York, because it was nice and forested. And then they agreed to go riding this Saturday.

Eventhough her sympathy for the scottish boy began at that moment, Clara would have still shaken her head if someone would have told her how close the two of them became.

She would have been sceptical if someone would have told her that in a matter of weeks, her friendship with Stevie would have rivalled in closeness to her friendship with Jessica.

She would have shaken her head if someone would have told her how much in common they turned out to have with their shared love for outdoor activities and nature and their shared taste in music- preferably old, angsty, great 80s rock ballads.

She would have dismissed it if someone told her now how thankful she would be for the decision she had just taken now.

She didn't know yet how much of a support Stevie would be to her in the shambles that her life would turn out to become in the next few months.

\---

"Come on, Clara," Stevie insisted as he pulled her along by the hand across the stream of people that were walking in the direction opposite them.

They were in Leed's Central Business District and Clara was quite out of breath at the hurry that Stevie was in.

He had arrived this morning straight after breakfast, just as she had been putting away the breakfast dishes and in complete enthusiasm he had proceeded to tell her about this old recordshop and how he had found a rare signed copy of Bowie's "Heroes"- _a first edition,_ he told her dreamily- and now Clara's morning plans consisted of accompanying him to this record store that was buried in the Central Business district, somewhere in between the numerous skyscrapers.

They had been walking-running for a quite a while now after they had gotten off the bus and Clara asked: "Didn't you call to ensure the guy would hold back the record? Why are you in such a hurry?"

"I don't know if I can trust the guy. Imagine if I arrived there just to have someone else buying it away from me right under my nose." She rolled her eyes at her friend's overdramatisation and stated: "The records probably been in the store since 1977 when it came out. I wouldn't worry too much." He looked at her, his blue eyes drenched with betrayal as he asked: "It's Bowie. How can you ask me to be calm, I thought you understood."

She shook her head. But then again she could understand him. It was Bowie and "Heroes" after all. So she allowed him to push her along and quickened her pace.

Once they arrived in the record store, Clara went on to browse as Stevie went to talk to the owner whom he had talked on the phone to.

The store was quite nice actually. Clara found herself lost in the record section, where she was finding vinyl records as well as CDs from all the bands and artists she liked.

She was just studying a dusty old vinyl record from _The Smashing Pumpkins_ adoringly, when she heard a familiar voice call out beside her, in surprise: "Clara?" Her spine stiffened and she straightened. She knew how it was- the characteristic speed-up in her heart would have been enough of a clue. She swallowed as she looked to the side towards her teacher.

The man in question was stood at the end of the aisle, frozen like he had been struck by lighting. With his eyes wide. He was about to open his mouth- presumably to ask her what she was doing here, when from behind her she heard another voice call out her name and a warm hand lay itself on her shoulder.

"Clara would you look at this beauty," her friend stated proudly behind her and she whirled towards him to see him smiling down at her.

He furrowed his brow as he saw her no-doubt distressed expression and he looked up towards its source.

Her friend's brow raised when his eyes landed on their teacher and Stevie drawled: "Mr. Wilson, what a surprise." Her friend had their lips twisted into a forced smile. She knew that Stevie didn't seem to like Mr. Wilson as much as their other classmates seemed to do. When she asked him the reason for this he had stated dismissively that he thought it was mean the way that Mr. Wilson seemed to have it out for her and that he disagreed with his blatant favoritism of some other students.

They both weren't overjoyed to meet their art teacher in their free time- though their reasons were diametrically opposed.

"Surprise indeed," he muttered and then he asked: "What are you two doing here?" _together,_ hung between them though he didn't dare say it. Stevie raised the Bowie record and flashing his toothiest grin stated: "We came to pick this up. It's incredibly rare- a treasure. Don't worry, Clara. I'll let you listen to it- some." He grinned down at her as he put his arms around her.

At the same moment, her eyes flashed towards her teacher. She couldn't explain why, perhaps because she wanted him to show a reaction to it.

She wasn't disappointed.

Yet she still almost jumped in surprise when she saw her art teacher level a murderous gaze at Stevie.

Her heart felt as if it would beat out of her chest.

She muttered, a sense of urgency filling her at the situation she found herself in: "Come on, Stevie. Let's go." She took a hold of his hand and not noting his reaction to her, she proceeded to pull him out of the shop.

She felt his eyes on her all the way out of the shop.

\---

_AN- What do you think about Stevie?_

 


	8. Chapter 8

_  
"Reliving 1992 here Playing "Sleeping Satellite" Playing Prince and Deacon Blue, yeah Playing "I Will Always Love You", yeah But when I think of me and you Get shivers down my spine I've gotta beam my message to you I've gotta beam my message to you I should've known from the call that you let out You're not alone and you're still in love And everyone says that I'm the upsetter But I'm alone and I'm so in love I've got it bad And now this heart beats black So black Oh yeah"- The Upsetter, Metronomy_

 

Going to school on Monday, she felt a cold sense of anticipation fill her gut.

It almost felt as if she was sick and this nausea almost caused her to want to stay in bed. Simply pull the covers over herself and wait out the day, in the safety of this cocoon she would build for herself. A voice whispered in her mind, warning her against the day of today. That would she simply wait out today she would spare herself a whole lot of trouble.

 

She had just laid back after turning off her alarm clock, when her mother entered the room asking her why she hadn't yet stood up and started to get ready. She had tried to convince her mother that she was sick and she couldn't go to school. But she had seen right through and with a simple scoff that she should drop it and get ready, her mother had left the room again and Clara was left without a choice.

 

It wasn't that she chose to ignore the premonition. She was forced to ignore it.

 

For the first six periods nothing happened.

 

Registration, double Mathematics, double English, lunch and double period science went by without anything mentionworthy happening. It was just routine, with the teachers holding lectures about their subject and her sitting with Stevie during lunch until he went to play some football with the other boys in class.

 

She was now sitting in art class and Stevie was teasing her about her lack of hand-eye-coordination. He did it this alot- teasing her and she knew that it was meant in good spirit. Additionally, she didn't mind being teased for her nonexistent art skills- she knew that she couldn't draw.

 

Yet today she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from snapping at her friend. It had less to do with his teasing of her and more to do with the fact that she was frustrated and on edge- frustrated because nothing had happened until now and she was superstitious enough to wonder why her gut feeling had misled her so. On edge, because her stomach was still twisted with anticipation and she just felt that something would happen. Had to happen.

 

She was about to adjust her grip on her paintbrush as she swung her arm out. She was especially unattentive today. Her hand knocked against the waterglass before her, sending it toppling over and soon enough the water had spread over her table and was dripping down the edge. Her skirt got wet and she mumbled a low curse beneath her breath.

 

Stevie jumped up and went to the sink beside them, soon returning with paper towels and both proceeded to clean up the water that she had spilt. Having helped his friend, Stevie felt entitled to chuckle and she rolled her eyes at his teasing of her.

 

As soon as they had salvaged the table, they sat back down and she was looking at her moist skirt unhappily. She heard Stevie chuckle as he watched her lament her clumsiness and he stated warmly: "Clumsy, little Clara." And then his hand was cupping her cheek and he was smiling down at her affectionately, while his thumb caressed her cheek bone.

 

She jumped at the sudden loud 'thud' that came from the front of the classroom. She looked up towards the source of the sound to see that Mr. Wilson was holding a large, leather-bound book which was displayed in the class and it was lying on the table. Clara counted two and two together and figured that he had probably slammed it on the table top.

 

And his blue eyes were murderous as he looked in their direction.

 

Stevie was still cupping her cheek, and, gulping, she moved out of his reach.

She didn't dare to look up at her teacher or her friend for the rest of the period.

Eventhough she felt the sea-blue eyes that she was infatuated with not leaving her for a second, she still didn't look up.

 

When the bell rang, she stood up and started to gather her things. Her other classmates had already started to clean up five minutes before the end of class and so the students were rushing out of the classroom to go home. Stevie had also already cleaned up his uttensils, but differently from the others he didn't rush out of class but leant against the table and waited for her to finish her clean-up.

 

She was just moving to the sink, when his soft voice stated authoratively: "Mr. McLaughlin, if you are done you may leave the class." She looked towards the front to see her teacher throwing her friend a shrewd look with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

Stevie answered: "Alreet, Mr. Wilson. I'm just waiting for Clara to finish up." The older man scoffed and then stated: "I'm sure Ms. Buchanan will be fine for five minutes without you." She looked over her shoulders to see Stevie looking towards their teacher with his brow furrowed. He then looked at her and she knew her face was blank- not indicating whether she wanted him to leave or stay.

 

She herself wasn't sure at that moment.

 

"Are you hard of hearing?," she heard his soft voice exclaim, angrily. "I said leave!" Stevie scrambled up and shouldering his bag he went out of the class, throwing Mr. Wilson an angry look and looking at her, silently communicating with his eyes that he would be waiting for her outside. As soon as the boy left the class, she heard him striding towards the door and slamming it shut.

Her shoulders were tensed at his behaviour and her hand started to furiously scrub at the heads of the paintbrushes she was cleaning. She was slightly frantic to finish her cleanup and leave the class with her teacher behaving this way.

 

The sound of his footsteps coming closer and closer to her was what set heart off to beat furiously in her chest. She had to resist the urge to grasp her midsection as her stomach twisted even more. The anticipation had progressed and turned into the feeling you get when you are utterly that something will happen. She looked down. Her fingers were shaking beneath the steady stream of cool water from the tap which was clear abover her fingers but then turned russet-coloured beneath her.

 

Her breath was coming in small, inaudible pants. Every pant was accompanied steadily by a loud beat of her heart and this created a silent melody which shrouded her.

 

But then it was silent. After a surprised gasp and a loud, final thud there was silence around her- around _them._ She didn't breathe and her heart had momentarily stopped working when a warm arm came around her waist. She dropped the brushes in the sink, her hands were removed from the stream of water as he pulled her towards him so that her side was now pressed against his front.

 

Her jaw slackened at being now surrounded by his warmth and by the smell of cologne and cigarette smoke.

 

Her heart started to beat again- furiously fast- when his hand snaked up and his palm came to rest on her cheek.

 

She felt him lean down towards her small frame and his face was now so close to hers.

 

She was shaking against him and then he breathed against her ear: "Does it feel like that when that _boy_ touches you?" His voice dripped with jealousy and his hand seemed to tighten on its spot at her waist, almost possessively.

 

She turned her face slightly towards him, looking at him through the corner of her eyes. He saw the moment, his blue eyes trained on her features watching her every motion. He held her gaze for a few seconds and then he dropped his eyes- his angry expression falling. He closed his eyes and then his forehead came to rest on her temple and he was so close that she could hear him breathe shakily into her ear.

 

And then he whispered- almost to himself: "What have you done to me?" In response, she scoffed shakily. He looked up at the sound and his face twisted

into something painful.

 

In the next moment, just as suddenly as he had come, he wrenched himself from her and she watched him as he stormed out of the class. She flinched slightly as he slammed the door shut behind him.

 

For a few seconds, which seemed to stretch eternally long, she kept watching the classroom's entrance to see if he would return. But he never did and if she wanted to, she could have waited the rest of the afternoon for him. But he wouldn't come back.

 

Eventually giving up, she turned towards the sink and continued cleaning up.

The routine was familiar as it had been before. Had it not been for her shaking hands and the blood rushing past her ear, she would have been sure that nothing had happened.

 

——

 

She was lying on her back on her favourite colourful throw as she listened to the introductory guitar riff from Bowie's "Heroes".

 

"God isn't this amazing," she heard him sigh dreamily beside her from his seat on the floor. Normally she would have agreed with him verbally and praised the musical genius of Bowie.

 

But she was still shaken from what had happened earlier today after class.

She was sure that it hadn't only been her infatuated, overactive mind that had imagined the interaction between her and her teacher.

 

No, her waist still tingled from where his hand had lain and she could still feel his scent in her nose and she doubted that she could ever dream up something so wonderful.

 

Having solved the issue of whether it was all a fantasy or not, however raised a whole bunch of new questions. At the forefront was: _"Why?"_  


 

It wasn't that she was dense or naive or oblivious, she could think of a reason why he had done what he had. But just couldn't believe it to be true.

 

This was real life. Not one of the sappy romance novels that had her friend Jessica sighing. The reason that she had conjured up would be more likely in one of these novels that in real life. Because in real life something like this didn't happen.

 

Teacher's didn't fall in love with their students back and they lived happily ever after.

 

And if it did happen it was usually with one of these creppy, slimy fifty-year-olds that you would see in the news.

 

Mr. Wilson was like that- he wasn't one of those predators who fell in love with their student who was fifteen years younger than him. And who was so off-limits that it made her head spin and her stomach tighten with the pain of unrequited love.

 

Even if he had somehow magically fallen in love with her, this only caused more dizzying questions to be raised. They all questioned the character she had drawn of him.

 

Because if he had fallen in love with her it would make her question his integrity quite a bit. She was young- too young, she couldn't imagine him being attracted to her and if he was it did cause her to cringe and for her to feel a pang of revulsion. Despite her infatuation for the man she was still level-headed enough to know that if her infatuation was requited her teacher's taste was more than highly questionable.

 

It went further than that. You couldn't always help who you felt attracted to or who drew you in- she was more than aware of that fact since arriving in Leeds. But the fact that he had demonstrated it to her openly- in what was, likely, a display of jealous possessiveness- had her questioning his state-of-mind.

 

It was highly inappropriate.

 

They were in her school and at his workplace.

 

It was illegal.

 

Whatever could have caused him to just disregard all of this?

 

She sat up as she saw Stevie turning around in his seat and resting his chin on her throw.

 

Her friend smiled at her and she resisted the urge to tell him what had happened today. The way she knew him he would probably do something quite drastic against the teacher- not having any sympathy for the man. And she couldn't allow this. Not when she wasn't fully aware what was behind this.

He was smiling at her and then he started non-chalantly: "You know Max is throwing a house-warming party." She sat up and scooting back on her bed so that her back was resting agains the head-rest she dismissed: "Forget it." She knew that he would try to persuade her to come. She could hear it in his voice.

"Oh come on, Clara. Why not?" She opened her mouth but he interrupted her: "You have no excuse. Your mother will be travelling until Sunday." She closed her mouth and cocking her head she looked at him with disapproval on her face that he had effectively shut down her reason.

 

He folded his hands infront of her as if in prayer and then he started to whine: "Please Clara. It will be fun. I promise you you will have fun."

 

She cocked her brow at him and asked: "A gathering full of people who don't know me and probably don't like me. How will this be fun?" He looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds and then he reasoned: "I'll be there. Also it's a great way for you to get to know some of our classmates. They are all really nice, Clara." He was looking at her with large, pleading eyes.

 

She felt pressured. Stevie really wanted her to go. And Stevie always was so understanding of her and her shyness. And he had befriended her despite the fact that she was so quite and awkward. It surely wasn't easy to have a friend who was so subdued and quiet as her, especially being as energetic and extroverted as him. She looked down, knowing she would regret this. But she still nodded her head, effectively telling him that she agreed to go.

Her friend cheered and proceeded to promise her multiple times that she would have fun.

 

Though she thought it unlikely, she could only hopehe was right.


	9. Chapter 9

" _You better shape up, 'Cause you need a man And my heart is set on you. You better shape up, You better understand To my heart I must be true."- You're The One That I Want, Lo-Fang_  


 

She was wringing her hands nervously as she followed her friend up the barely lit path to Joe Graeme's house. She swallowed heavily as the muffled steady beat of music reached her ears from inside the house.

 

They reached the entrance and Stevie rang the bell. As they waited for his football mate to open the door, he turned back towards her, shoving his hands in the pockets of his green slacks and giving her an uneven smirk.

 

She tried to return the smile but she knew that the uncertainty was written in her eyes.

 

This was the first party that Clara had ever gone to.

 

That wasn't technically one hundred percent true. She had gone to parties staged by her relatives like birthdays or christenings or anniversaries. And she'd been invited to Jess's birthday since they'd both been five years old.

 

But this was the first time she was at a house party for which she saw no occasion. And this was the first party where there was no adult supervision. She knew that Jess's last birthday had been without adult supervision. But it had taken place after Clara had moved to Leeds.

 

She'd much rather her first 'teenage party' was her best friend's fifteenth birthday. Instead here she was: about to go to a party filled with her classmates with whom she hadn't exchanged more than five sentences in the best of cases. People who knew nothing about her. People who probably believed her to be a stuck-up southener who found herself too good to mingle with the likes of them instead of a shy, reclusive girl who became inordinately nervous if someone looked even more than five seconds at her.

 

She wasn't even sure that the host knew that she was coming and if Stevie had told him she would be accompanying him.

 

Her suspicion was only strengthened when Joe Graeme opened the door and after greeting Stevie with a smile his grey eyes fell on her and they widened with suprise and startlement. This caused her to look down self-consciously.

 

Stevie put his arm around her and pushing her slightly forward he stated: "Hey Joe, I'm sure you know Clara from our year. She decided to come as well, isn't that nice?" She could hear the urging tone in his voice.

 

A second of silence passed and then she heard the other boy's low voice: "Yes it's lovely. Come in you two." She looked up to see Joe giving her a tentative smile which she returned with one of her own.

 

As she passed by him, she saw his grey eyes flicker towards the exposed skin of her midriff and blood rushed to her face in embarassment and self-consciousness.

 

She felt very uncomfortable in what she was wearing. It was one of those short, tiny tops that Jessica had bought her on one of their shopping trips, which revealed some of her stomach as it didn't quite come down to the top of her trousers. And she only had it because Jess was adamant that she get it, since _she looked so great in cropped tops with her flat stomach and her creamy skin._  


 

It was the first time that she had ever worn it. And it hadn't been her choice. She had been dressed and ready in a normal-length top, but then Jess had called as if she'd had some sixth sense. Clara regretted telling her best friend that she was going to a party two days ago. If she didn't know she probably wouldn't have called this afternoon, driven by a sixth sense and a knowledge that Clara was dressing plainly. And her best friend had been insistent until Clara had dressed exactly the way her friend had instructed her too.

 

She didn't look terrible. It was the only reason she didn't immediately change back after she had gotten off the phone with Jess. But she'd regretted her outfit choice as soon as she had opened the door to Stevie and after his initial surprise his blue eyes had lingered on her exposed skin. By then it had been too late for her to change.

 

They walked into the living room filled with students in her year and some from the year above. Most of them were holding glass bottles or coloured cups and were talking with each other in small groups. Clara momentarily wondered how they could hear each other and hold a conversation over the loud music.

 

The first person who noticed her was a girl who sat opposite her during Home Education. Her brown eyes widened in surprise and she immediately turned to her friend, whispering something agitatedly. From then on it was like an avalanche had started with people turning towards her, eyes widening in suprise at her presence and turning towards their friend to comment on her presence.

 

Clara's heart was like a humming bird's wing and she felt that if she wasn't careful it might fly out of her chest.

 

She once again felt Stevie putting his arms around her and she obliged as he guided her into the room. They came to a stop before the drink's table and he gave her shoulder a squeeze whispering a 'It's going to be alright' before taking his arms off her shoulder and proceeding to pour them both a drink.

 

After handing her a coloured cup filled with some brownish liquid drink, they both turned around and were met with the sight of two of Stevie's closest friends approaching them.

 

Michael Calhoun stretched out his hand toward Stevie and pulled his mate into a hug, before Stevie hugged Sarah Riordan as well. Within a week after Stevie's arrival to the school, the three of them had been inseparable with them sitting together in classes and Stevie playing footbal with Michael during lunch break and Sarah sitting on the grass beside the field watching them and ocassionally calling something towards them.

 

Her hand was tracing the ridges in her plastic cup as she was unsure what to do with herself as the three friends greeted each other. As Sarah wound herself out of Stevie's arms, the pretty blonde-haired girl gave her a tight, but still friendly smile which Clara tried to return to the best of her abilities.

 

But it was Michael who broke the silence that had settled between the four of them: "Wow mate, you really got _her_ to come."

 

" _Her_ has a name. Don't be rude, Michael," a soft, feminine voice drawled and Clara kept studying Sarah closely as she drawled lazily at her friend before turning back to face her.

 

Feeling like she had to do something because she and Sarah couldn't simply keep looking at each other silently and she felt that she would have to take the initiative here, she stretched out her hand towards the blonde as if in greeting and stated: "I'm Clara." And immediately she cringed. Because Sarah did know who she was since they frequented the same grade and classes. And this greeting was entirely inappropriate.

 

She blurted out trying to correct her mistake: "I mean you probably know who I am but..." And she realised as she blabbered that she was only making it worse and more awkward and she waited for them to start laughing at her.

 

Her eyes popped open when she felt a warm hand taking hers and a soft voice stating: "I know. And you probably know that I'm Sarah. But we can still introduce ourselves." Clara returned the girl's warm smile with her own shaky one.

 

She proceeded to introduce herself to Michael and they spent some time talking to each other. And Clara began to loosen up. It was actually pleasant to talk to them. Sarah was very kind and she didn't mention with one word Clara's reclusiveness and Michael was funny, almost as funny as Stevie as he kept cracking one-liners between Sarah's stories, which would always cause her to grin. Clara kept quiet most of the time only adding something when she was specifically asked to. She felt comfortable enough listening to three others, occasionally sipping from her drink.

 

With each sipp she grew warmer and warmer. When half the cup was gone she had grown so hot and the room had become so stuffy that she took off her moss-green jacket. Her thoughts were fuzzy and even if she felt self-conscious it seemed so washed-out by the drink that she didn't care. Stevie's arm was so around her and she kept sipping the drink, being warmed by it and her friend's closeness.

 

When she finished her drink, Stevie got her cup and whispered in her ear that he was going to get them some more. Sarah accompanied him to the drink's table so that it was only her and Michael standing opposite to each other.

 

With Sarah now gone, it was quiet between them and Clara started to become agitated. She felt that she should say something to break this awkwardness between them. She only didn't know what. And her fuzzy thoughts were not helping her any.

 

As she struggled, Michael took a long deliberate drink from his bottle and then after he stated very bluntly: "He fancies you, you know." She recoiled at the abruptness of his statement and he reinforced it, seeing her confusion at who _He_ was: "Stevie. He fancies you a lot. It's why he's spending so much time with you."

 

Her mouth opened and she wanted to say something but no sound came out and she closed her mouth again. Somewhere in the back of her head she thought she probably looked like a fish out of water. But the forefront of her mind was occupied with Michael's revelation.

 

It wasn't a huge surprise. She had thought that Stevie only felt platonically towards her for some time but there had always been a small part of her that figured that his touches were much too frequent and intimate for a simple friendship. He made no secret that he found her attractive.

 

Her fuzzy mind only added to her discomfort and she wondered why she was feeling like this. Almost as if she was seeing the world through a plastic pane. She wound her arms around herself and Michael was telling her something but the sound of him and everyone else was drowned out and she was starting to feel rather nauseous.

 

Someone mumbled a low and weary _excuse me_ and she only noticed that it had been her when she was pulling herself up the stairs of Joe Graeme's home to the first floor.

 

She opened the door that was exactly opposite her as she reached the top of the flight of stairs only to turn completely red when she saw a boy from the year above her snogging the girl from her Home Education class who was topless. She quickly closed the door and then she moved to the next room.

 

Thank God that when she opened it, there were no two half-naked teenagers snogging, but an empty tiled bathroom. She entered the room and after closing the door shut behind her she laid down on the tiles. The coolness of them on her cheeks offered a relief from the oppressive heat she felt and she finally felt grounded whereas before the entire world had seemed to be spinning around her.

 

She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth against the pleasant coolness of the tiles. And then she heard the door open. She didn't look up, uncaring that she probably made up a pathetic sight lying on the tiles, drunk off her head.

 

Someone knelt down beside her and then they were brushing her hair out of her face and tucking the strands behind her ear. She squinted up at the person and recognized Stevie's sympathetic face.

 

She whispered: "You didn't tell me that there was alcohol in that drink." She didn't mean for it to come out sounding so accusing. But it did. And she did accuse him. He chuckled and stated: "I figured you knew." She didn't shake her head because she felt that she would vomit if she did but mumbled: "It's my first time at something like this." "Oh Clara I'm so sorry," he mumbled while stroking her hair.

 

As he kissed her forehead she whispered: "It's ok, I'm not angry at you. I feel more bad for you, because Michael told me you fancied me. And I fancy Mr. Wilson. I feel bad for me too, you know. Because it's a hopeless situation. I can't have him and you can't have me."

 

She didn't mean to say that out loud. That speech should have been all in her head. But her head was pounding and felt too full and the words had come crashing out of her.

 

She could still feel his arms around her. He still burned her.

 

Stevie didn't answer for a long time. Not in words anyways. The answer to her confession came in the form of a lound bang of a door being closed behind him as he left her.

 

Even in her state Clara realised that she has made a huge mistake.

 

Had she been in a better notion she would have chased after her friend and tried to rectify the situation. But as it was, she stood up slowly and made her way back down to the main party area.

 

She did look for Stevie for a bit. But as she couldn't find him, or Sarah or even Michael, she gave up and left the party.

 

The rational part within her was screaming at her for leaving the party in the middle of the night, alone and drunk. But she wasn't rational because her words had seemed to have opened up something within her. And her insides were absolutely chaotic.

 

She was starting to realise that it wasn't just a silly schoolgirl crush that she felt towards Mr. Wilson. Since that first morning in the secretary something had been awakened within her.

 

It wasn't a silly schoolgirl crush... It was too raw, too painful, too _real... And it fucking terrified her._  


 

And what he felt towards her... Well that absolutely terrified her too, whatever it was... Because she knew that whatever would happen would have a catastrophic outcome. There was no other possibility. She was slowly but surely leading both their lives towards absolute ruin.

 

She looked up and she realised that she had walked far and she was in the Central Business District of Leeds. She figured that she could take a bus from here to her home. She only needed to get to the bus stop and pray that she wouldn't encounter anything or anyone because she couldn't protect at the best of times, let alone now.

 

She walked towards her bus stop and only prayed that she found the right one despite the fuzziness of her mind. But the bench at the stop seemed familiar as did the bar beside it. She decided this was affirmation enough. So she sat down at the bench. And she drew her knees to her chest and she waited.

 

Suddenly she felt someone grabbing her shoulder and she screamed.

 

She was absolutely terrified because there was no one around her and she was in no state to defend herself and surely this someone grabbing her had no good intentions towards her.

 

She struggled but the person was insistent, now grabbing both her shoulders and she twisted and turned trying to get away.

 

"Clara... Clara... Clara!" This person called out and somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered how her attacker knew her name. But she was consumed with her wish to escape.

 

It was only when the person tightened their grip and exclaimed: "Clara... Little Bird... Stop!" She recognized the nickname from that one time in the churchyard and she recognized the voice. She slowly opened her eyes almost afraid that her ears had fooled her and when she opened her eyes she would not be met with the sight she wanted.

 

But it was him she saw.

 

Her heart sunk in relief that it was him and his blue eyes. She gave out a low sob and without thinking and with no reservations she slung her arms around him and grabbed onto him as if he was her lifeline.

 

Seeing that she had stopped struggling, his arms came around her waist and he pulled her closer. And he clung to her also. And then she heard him exclaim into her hair: "Oh Clara... My Clara." And she shivered in his arms at his exclamation.

 

She didn't remember much after that.

 

Only snippets:

 

The feel of the cool leather from the bus beneath her legs and his arms still wound around her. Not letting her go so that she was clinging to his side as the bus drove on.

 

Somehow laying down in her bed.

 

Grabbing his hand and telling him to stay.

 

Warm fingers caressing the exposed skin of her midriff as she drifted to sleep.

 

——

 

Light streaming through her windows woke her up the next morning.

 

As the early morning sun shone on her face, she opened her eyes and immediately she closed her eyes again and gave a low groan as her head was pounding.

 

She didn't feel very good this morning. The fuzziness of her mind was replaced by an excrutiating ache and her mouth was dry like sand. And there was an uncharacteristic heaviness on her stomach. Yet strangely that was the one thing that didn't feel necessarily unpleasant.

 

She opened her eyes carefully and sitting up slightly she looked towards her stomach and the sight that she was met with left her gobsmacked.

 

Because the heaviness on her stomach was actually because of her teacher who was lying on her stomach, facing her as he slept. The tip of his fingers resting lightly on the skin exposed from her top.

 

She lay back down, staring at the ceiling above her in disbelief. She could remember meeting him while she was waiting for her bus and she figured that he had probably accompanied her to make sure she was safe. And she was thankful for that.

 

But this shouldn't be happening. Despite the fact that her heart was soaring at his closeness, this shouldn't be happening.

 

Good Lord, they were in trouble.

 

She felt him stirring and her response was to close her eyes and feign sleep.

 

He awoke and lifted his head off of her so that the heaviness was gone. He sat up and she struggled not to squirm as she could his blue eyes trained on her. He spent a few moments studying her and she almost felt that he was waiting for her to stop feigning sleep. But she kept her eyes screwed shut, in a silent battle with him.

 

Eventually he gave up as she felt him sitting up. And she was about to exhale, but then she felt his lips on her cheek and she froze. His lips lingered for a few seconds longer than necessary before he straightened. She heard his footsteps grow more quiet as he walked away from her and then the sound of him softly closing the door behind him.

 

Her eyes popped open as she exhaled shakily and her eyes were wide with disbelief as she looked up at her skyblue ceiling. The cheek that he had kissed was on fire.

 

——

 

She was standing in the doorframe to her kitchen watching his back as he was standing at the kitchen sink drinking a glass of water quickly.

 

It had taken her some time to build up her courage and come downstairs. She didn't know how to confront him. She almost wished that she was drunk again- because drunk, scared-out-of-her-mind Clara simply threw any reservations to the wind and embraced him like her life depended on it.

 

Lucid Clara was painfully shy and painfully aware that this situation was so utterly wrong and problematic.

 

And lucid Clara should have simply asked him to leave and perhaps start planning on how to talk to her mother and convince the woman that changing schools would be a very good idea.

 

But similarly to her drunk counterpart, lucid Clara longed for the blue-eyed man. And she didn't want to throw him out. She really didn't.

 

She cleared her throat and immediately he whirled towards her. She didn't know what to say to him so she was thankful when he started: "How do you feel?" She scoffed slightly and stated: "Sick."

 

He approached her and taking her hand in his larger one he lead her towards the kitchen table silently telling her to sit down. She did and looked up at him as he stated: "You are hungover. Do you have any aspirin and a toast bread?" She nodded and told him where her mother had kept both of those things.

 

Soon he put down a glass of water fizzing with the tablet and a plate with golden-brown, warm toast with butter melting on top and told her lowly: "This is my hangover cure. It's really effective."

 

As she drank the fizzing he asked her: "What were you doing yesterday that you were walking around Leeds completely drunk?" His tone of voice was accusing and she could hear the irritation in his voice. She picked up the toast and proceeded to pick at it. She shrugged and explained: "I was at a party yesterday that Stevie took me to and I had something alcoholic to drink and then I left."

 

"And he just fucking let you leave like that?!," she flinched as he exclaimed loudly. She started picking at the bread more quickly and whispered: "We had a fight. I couldn't find him and I was upset and I left." He got up and exclaimed so loud that she cringed: "Still doesn't fucking justify him leaving you. Anything could have happened to you..." His voice died down towards the end of his sentence.

 

He strode towards her and then knelt down so that his face was level with hers. His hands came to rest upon her cheeks and he whispered: "If anything would have happened to you..." His blue eyes flickered towards her lips and she realised that she was moving towards him unconsciously.

 

They jumped apart at the sound of the doorbell. She stood up and her heart started to pound in her chest. She drew her morning robe tighter around her and over her shoulder she ordered him: "Stay here." Then she strode out of the kitchen, closing the kitchen door behind her.

 

It was a sheepish Stevie at the door who looked immensely relieved when she opened the door. He engulfed her in a hug and proceeded to mutter: "Oh thank god.. I was so worried... Oh Clara, I couldn't find you... But you are here now and you are safe."

 

She drew back and stated: "It's ok. I'm fine. Calm down."

 

He looked at her, his eyes flickering over her face to make sure that she was safe and whole and unhurt and then he closed his eyes and his head came to rest on her forehead. He exhaled shakily. And he whispered: "I don't want to talk about what you told me yesterday. I just... I was so worried about you... I'm so sorry I was a complete wanker."

 

She looked over Stevie's shoulder to see him studying the two of them. His expression was unreadable. Their eyes met. He held her gaze before turning around and closing the kitchen door again.

 

After she had convinced Stevie to go to her room and giving the excuse that she was going to cook them some tea, she entered the kitchen again to see him sitting at the kitchen table where she had previously sat.

 

He gave her an ascerbic smirk and cocking his brow he asked: "You and your boyfriend make up again." The jealousy she heard in his voice was like a punch to her gut. Putting the kettle on the stove, she stated: "It's none of your business." His hand grabbed her wrist roughly and he pulled her towards him so that she whirled into him. He was holding her to him tightly, with her wrist still held tightly in his grip and his other hand resting possesively on the small of her back. His eyes seemed to be burning. He was close so close to her and was getting closer. And his eyes were trained on her lips.

 

And when they were only the breadth of a hair apart and his closeness was intoxicating, she whispered in a last attempt: "Just think about what you are about to do." The fire in his eyes were extinguished at her words. His face fell and then he pushed her from him.

 

The kettle started to whistle as she kept looking after him leaving her house.


	10. Chapter 10

_"I have these thoughts So often I ought To replace that slot With what I once bought 'Cause somebody stole My car radio And now I just sit in silence"- Car Radio, Twenty One Pilots_

 

Stevie was sitting on her bed as she came in with two steaming mugs of Earl Grey. He looked up at her and at the sight of her his half-grin fell from his face.

 

He scrambled towards her as she sat down on her carpet beside him and he took the cup from her before slinging his arms around her shoulders and whispering: "Clara what's wrong? You are pale as a ghost."

 

She started shaking her head and soon she was frantically shaking her head back and forth. She felt him pass a comforting hand over her shoulder blade and he kept asking her what happened.

 

She looked down at the milky brown substance in her cup and whispered: "Just don't ask. Please don't ask. If you are my friend please don't ask."

 

He was quiet after that.

* * *

 

Clara steeled herself as the kettle began to whistle.

 

Taking the warm water off the stove, she proceeded to pour the steaming liquid into two cups. Then she put the kettle away and, grabbing both cups, moved to the kitchen table.

 

She nodded her head as her mother thanked her after Clara had put down the steaming mug before her and took a seat on the chair beside the older woman, who had just arrived back from Glasgow where she had been for work.

 

She prodded at the teabag which was swimming at the water surface and furrowed her brow as she thought about how to approach her mother with what she wanted to say. Yet before she could arrange her words and prepare herself for the discussion that was undoubtedly about to ensue, her mother preceeded her: "What is it, Clara?"

 

Clara looked up to see her mother shrewdly studying her and the woman must have seen the confussion in her eyes because she elaborated: "I can see that you want to talk to me about something."

 

Clara pushed the cup away from her and straightened herself. There was no going back now. She had still been in doubt whether or not she should talk to her mother about this. But the woman had effectively eliminated any possibility that Clara had to go back on this.

 

"I'm... I'm wondering if perhaps changing schools wouldn't be beneficial for me, mother," she didn't look up at her mother. But she could feel her icy-grey eye studying her intensely.

 

Her mother broke the silence with an impassive: "Why?" It was infuriating, because she couldn't tell what she was thinking. Her mother was able to do the most neutral voice. She had always been able to do this: When her mother had announced to her that her great-aunt, who had always made Clara sweet scones when they had visited her on Sundays, had passed away as five-year-old Clara had asked why they weren't visiting their aunt one sunday. When she had announced to Clara that her father had left them. When she had told Clara that they would be moving to Leeds. And now.

 

"It's just a feeling, mother," Clara whispered. She could have told her mother about Mr. Wilson. About how her relationship with her teacher had veered from professional and detached into a territory that was dangerous and frightening and made her heart beat at a furious pace. About how she suspected that he has begun to care for her in a way that was entirely inappropriate. About how she cared for him- much more than she should.

 

But it was because of that, that she didn't tell her mother any of this. Because she knew that her straight-laced, strict mother wouldn't accept this. Even if it was just a very strong suspicion on Clara's side. Her mother would take measures against this, which would surely not be transferring Clara from the school. No matter how much Clara would beg her mother, her mother would surely take measures against Mr. Wilson.

 

Clara couldn't bear to ruin this man's life.

 

Because this is what she would be doing if she told her mother.

 

  
_This is what you are already doing,_ a little, infuriating voice whispered in her mind but Clara shook it off like you would an annoying fly.

 

However she did not only think about Mr. Wilson when concealing the real reason from her mother. She knew that if she told her mother it would reflect very badly on her mother's opinion of her. Despite being very strict and demanding, she did believe that her mother had a good opinion of her. She was after all exactly what her mother wanted in a daughter: Dedicated to her school work and her music; polite and discreet in her behaviour with others and at home; obedient without ever questioning one of her mother's orders.

 

If she told her mother about her little crush on her teacher, her mother would no doubt disapprove. And it would no doubt be a matter of discussion in her family's table whenever the relatives got together at Christmas in her grandmother's house. Like when her older cousin had run off with that artist, who had been married and ten years her senior. The comments her relatives had made rang in her ears now.

 

Clara swallowed. She preferred not to tell her mother the real reason behind her request. She preferred to stick with the excuse. Though she knew that it would do her no favour. And predictably her mother scoffed and dismissed her saying: "Don't be ridiculous, Clara Rose. I will not change your school just because of your indulgent fancies."

 

After that Clara rose after swallowing the rest of her tea with difficulty. She returned to her room with a feeling of dread.

 

She wasn't sure of what.

 

The most obvious answer would be that she was frightened of him. Of his possible advances. There had now been two occasions where he had seemingly been unable to hold himself back. She should be frightened that he would do something that she didn't want.

 

But on Monday she when she could literally feel his eyes on her during art and she looked up to see him looking at her with something akin to longing in his eyes, she realised that she wasn't frightened of him. Though she knew next to nothing of him, she didn't think he would hurt her in any way.

 

She realised as she was going home that same day that she was not frightened _of_ him but _for_ him. And for herself.

 

She was scared for the both of them.

* * *

 

The phone ringing interrupted her in the midst of her harp practice.

 

When Clara answered the phone and greeted the other person on the line, she almost let the phone fall from her hands in response to the voice which answered her when she inquired who had called her.

 

Her heart was beating wildly in her chest when she heard a masculine soft voice whisper tenderly: "Hello Clara, sweetheart." In response to the voice which answered her she sat down on the stool next to the phone table and resting her forehead in the palm of her hand, she whispered disbelievingly: "Dad?"

 

A warm chuckle resounded in response to her question. It was the same chuckle she had known her whole life: When she had shown him the four-leaf clover she had found in her fourth birthday, when she had thanked him profusely for Buttercup knowing that he was highly opposed to giving her a pet.

 

She shook her head and asked: "How do you know this number?" He responded: "I asked your grandmother. She gave it to me. I suppose she sees no reason to cut off my communication from you as your mother saw fit." She did not respond to that. She wanted to ask him how he could blame her mother. He had after all left them for his secretary, leaving them both heart-broken. But she was so surprised at him calling that she didn't ask. She remained mute.

 

After about a minute, he seemed to become nervous and asked her: "I hope that is not a problem..." She shook her head in response and reminding herself that her father could not see her, she stated: "No. It is not. I just didn't think I would hear from you..." _anymore_ "so soon." Effectively she was answering herself. She too had wondered if hearing from her father after what he did would offend her.

 

She couldn't hate her father like her mother might've wanted her to.

 

She didn't want to.

 

She heard him sigh- in relief- down the line and she allowed a small smile to tug at her lips when he proceeded much more enthusiastically than before: "I called you, because I will be in York next week. And I was thinking about passing by Leeds on my way back to London." She inhaled sharply. "Perhaps we could have lunch and then do something afterwards. I still have to buy you your 15th birthday present."

 

She wanted to see her father. She really did. Growing up her father had always been much warmer and affectionate than her mother had been, which might've been due to his more laid-back personality.

 

But she was sure that her mother would be against this.

 

After he had broken her heart, her mother did not want to have anything to do with her ex-husband. And she didn't want Clara having anything to do with him either.

 

That was the thing about love.

 

It turned so quickly into hate, considering how closely the two bordered on each other.

 

"Clara ?," her father's questioning voice raised her from her thoughts. "Look, if you still feel uncomfortable around me that is fine. I'm happy to talk with you on the phone until you feel that you can look at me in person. But I just wanted to take advantage of the opportunity next week."

 

She interrupted him and explained: "I do want to see you. It's just... Mother might not agree." He sighed again- this time in exasperation. "Yes of course," she heard her father state curtly and she could almost hear the sour expression he must've been carrying on his face.

 

"I will give you my phone number. If you do want to meet next week just call me." He started to dictate her his number which she wrote down. They were about to hang up when her father stated: "I really do miss you terribly Clara and I would very much like to see you again." He took a deep breath and added: "I left your mother. But I did not leave you."

 

With a heavy heart she ended the call with her father, pressing the paper his number was on to her chest.

* * *

 

As she had predicted her mother did not react at all well when Clara told her about her father's call and his request.

 

The thing with Clara's mother was that Clara had only ever experienced the woman two ways: either cool and detached or angry and fierce. Those were the only two ways she knew her mother: either as glacial and in control, or argumentative and uncontrolled.

 

She was sitting on the living room couch as her mother paced back and forth before her like a caged lion and exclaimed loudly: "I can't believe that you didn't end the call as soon as you heard his voice, Clara Rose. And that you would even consider meeting with this man after everything he has done to us."

 

Before she could stop herself, knowing she would be making a grave error, she echoed his words: "He left you. Not me."

 

As soon as she had uttered those words, Clara wished to take them back. The room was now charged with tension. Her mother was quiet- deathly, terrifyingly quiet. Just as Clara wanted to look up to see what her mother was doing, the silence in the room was broken by a loud, sharp 'smack'.

 

Clara's face was twisted to the side and her right cheek was warm- becoming warmer and warmer and her skin started to sting.

 

She turned her face to see her mother, breathing heavily after having slapped her and looking down at her with a murderous expression.

 

The woman then spat, to add insult to injury: "You are a fool. And if you believe what your father has told you, you are more of a fool than I had previously thought. Your father was glad to see the back of you. He has only come back now that he doesn't have to deal with you daily anymore."

 

Clara didn't respond. She stood up and without excusing herself she breathed past her mother. Had she looked back she would have seen the woman's startled expression. As soon as her mother caught herself she followed Clara as the latter was steering determinedly towards the front entrance.

 

Furiously, Clara started to put on her shoes and her jacket and just as she was about to open the door, her mother asked angrily: "What do you think you are doing?"

 

Clara gritted her teeth and spat: "Leaving. Before I start to hate you." With that she opened the door and left.

* * *

 

After much hesitation, she rung the doorbell.

 

She stepped back and slung her arms around herself to protect herself from the cool evening wind as she waited for an answer.

 

She shouldn't be here. Waiting. But she hadn't been able to think of another place to go after fleeing from home and her mother.

 

The intercom buzzed and she heard his voice: "Yes who is this." She pressed the button and spoke into the machine: "It's Clara." For a long time there was no answer to this. She stepped back once again, waiting for him to answer. Silently begging him to answer. But no answer came.

 

She stepped down and was about to sit down on the street curb and think about what she would do now, when the door opened behind her.

 

She didn't turn around.

 

She could feel his blue eyes fixed on the skin of her nape.

 

Her fingers twitched.

 

"I care about you."

 

Silence. She didn't answer.

 

He sighed. It was such a heavy sigh. As if his was unloading everything in that sigh.

 

"I care about you a lot. So much more than I should."

 

He was warning her, she noted duly.

 

The cool wind was causing her eyes to sting and she raised her face towards the sky.

 

"I couldn't think of where else to go."

 

She heard him take a step towards her.

 

"I just couldn't go anywhere else."

* * *

 

AN- So what did you think?

I hope it has become clear in the conversation that Clara did have other places she could go to other than to Ricky (yes she went to Ricky's flat). She knows Stevie now and has been to his house. But she couldn't go to Stevie's because she had to go to Ricky's.

 

I wanted to ask you what you think of my characterisation in this story. Do you like my characters and how I am portraying them. Is Clara the dreaded Mary-Sue and should I change anything about her? Is the way I am portraying Ricky realistic? Or is he creeping you out? Are the characters well-rounded: here I am particularly talking about Clara's mother. Eventhough she is sort of the antagonist in Clara's life growing up, I still don't want her to be one-dimensional and I want to show that Clara still loves her mother despite the difficult relationship the two have.

 

I would very much appreciate so feedback. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	11. Chapter 11

_"If there is a light You can always see And there is a world We can always be If there is a kiss I stole from your mouth And there is a light, Don't let it go out"- Song for Someone, U2_

Brown eyes never left his form as he moved about in his small kitchenette making them tea.

Clara was sitting on the worn, brown suede leather of the living room couch with her knees drawn to her chest. She watched him intently, her eyes never once straying from him as he cooked them tea in his kitchen. Her right cheek was resting on her knees and she didn't bother to hide that she was looking at him even when he turned around and approached her with two tea mugs in his hands.

If he was startled that she had been watching him and continued to watch him even as he drew closer to her, he didn't show it. Silently she wondered if he too could feel her gaze whenever she looked at him like she felt it when he was watching her.

Handing her the mug he sat down beside her. At first they didn't talk. Clara waited until the liquid in the cup was no longer steaming before she took her first sip and they remained in utter silence for someone time with only the ticking of the large grandfather clock in the far right-hand corner of his living room filling the silence.

It was only when she was halfway done drinking her tea that he began: "What happened here?" To accompany his words, she felt him take hold of her chin and gently turn her left cheek, the one her mother had slapped, towards him. His thumb then proceeded to rub delicate circles over the irritated area of skin.

Unconsciously, she leaned into his touch and whispered: "Me and mother had a fight." Her eyes were closed, his touch was lulling her into something akin a warm cocoon. He stayed silent after her answer and when she again opened her eyes, she could see the question in his eyes. He didn't want to ask her what they had fought about, fearing that she would take it as a breach into her privacy. But he still wondered.

Normally she would have been reluctant to discuss this with an uninvolved third-party. But it was different. With him.

It was  _always_ different with him.

She gently tugged her face out of his grasp and moved back slightly. And then she shrugged her shoulders and stated as unaffectedly as she could: "My dad called me. He's in York next week and he wants to see me. And I want to see him. But my mother doesn't approve." At the end she gave an ascerbic chuckle and her lips twisted into a small, angry half-smirk.

"What happened with your dad?," he asked softly, taking her sharing with him as her permission for him to know about the situation. She leaned her head back and looking at the ceiling above them she stated matter-of-factly: "He left my mother for another woman."

"Oh," her teacher breathed beside her. "I didn't know that," he stated unnecessarily. She scoffed and shaking her head she exclaimed: "Of course not. How could you?"

Silence followed her exclamation. She looked away from the ceiling and turned her head towards him to see that he was watching her contemplatively. She added lowly: "It's the reason we moved to Leeds at the beginning of the year."

Looking away from her, he nodded his head and took a sip from his tea mug while looking off in front of him. "What are you thinking about?," she asked him in a soft whisper.

A small smile tugged at his lips and he shook his head while lowering it at the same time. She squared her shoulders as her curiosity was piqued at his response. Then: "I think telling you what I am thinking would be very inappropriate in this situation." She looked at him, not answering to his statement.

He looked towards her and she was certainly looking curious, because he again smiled and lowering his eyes he explained: "I was thinking that, despite being very sympathetic towards your pain and that of your mother, I am thankful to your father." She straightened herself and continued to look at him intently: "I know I must seem like an unfeeling, selfish brute to you by saying that. But it is what brought you to me."

She lowered her head and asked: "But haven't we just made life more difficult?" He sighed in response to her question and she looked up to see that he was passing a weary hand over his face. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly and admitted with something akin to defeat colouring his tone, as if he had wondered long and hard about this only to arrive at this conclusion that was highly unsatisfactory to him and which he had struggled with for long but was slowly admitting defeat to: "I don't know... I don't know what it is about you. But I don't think I have seen anything as interesting as you."

She wanted to tell him that she wasn't interesting. In her eyes, she was so simple. She was just another young girl, who had to deal with her shyness, who was insecure of herself and had extreme self-confidence issues. Someone who strived to meet the expectations that had been thrust upon her. There was nothing extraordinary or interesting about her.

She was ordinary.

She thought that she could tell him this as much as she wanted to.

He wouldn't change his mind.

He was sitting hunched over, with his hands hanging limply between his legs, looking infront of him with sad, weary eyes. She cocked her head and suddenly she had to fight against a large, painful lump in her throat.

She scooted towards him and lay her head on his shoulder. In response, he held her.

—-

She woke up the next day to the warm smell of coffee coming from the kitchenette into his bedroom.

Before standing up, she allowed herself some time to orientate herself and blink the remainder of sleep from her eyes. But as soon as she was mostly lucid, she stood up and wrapping his toffee-coloured throw over her shoulders, she trudged towards the kitchenette.

He was just pouring a dark liquid from the coffee-maker into two cups on the kitchen counter before him, when she wished him a 'Good Morning'. He continued pouring the rest of the coffee as he answered in his deep voice to her greeting. Then he turned around.

He froze when his eyes landed on her. Blue eyes took her in from head-to-toe. During his intense scrutiny, she felt heat rise to her cheeks and Clara proceeded to step from one foot to another in nervousness.

She was just about to say something when he shook his head and gesturing slightly to the table, he silently invited her to sit down. She took a seat in one of the chair and he put down one mug before her and the other on the table in front of a chair facing her.

He smirked at her: "You will be staying for breakfast." It wasn't a question but still Clara felt the need to answer: "If you will have me." The soft smile he gave her in response to this was answer enough.

He proceeded to look for something in one of the kitchenette's cupboards and then he asked her slowly: "I have toast or weetabix. Which do you prefer?" She shrugged her shoulders but he was looking at her expectantly over his shoulders and she answered: "I'll have some weetabix then." 

He proceeded to put weetabix into a bowl with some milk for her. As he was just pouring a half-full pint of milk into the bowl, his phone started to ring. He took his cellphone from the back-pocket of his jeans and then holding the phone to his ears with his free hand, he answered it: "Yes, hello?" 

He put down the bowl before her as he listened to the person on the other line asnwering him. His face twisted into a grimace as he sat down before her and he proceeded to explain placatively: "It isn't that I forgot about it, Nick. I mean to a certain extent yes. But I was still aware of the gig last night. It's just..." he looked up at her before continuing: "Something important came up."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry. Tell the lads that. And I will try to call the label and ask them for another appointment," he sighed. He hung up after saying a short 'Goodbye'. And then he took a long sip from his coffee before giving a wary sigh.

From what he had said on the phone, Clara believed that she understood somewhat what the matter was. He'd probably had a gig last night. And her arriving at his doorstep had caused him to miss it. Gritting her teeth against the guilt she felt, she whispered: "I'm so sorry about making you miss your chance." He looked up at her, furrowing his brow. 

At first he was looking at her with a degree of annoyance in his eyes. But seeing her guilty expression, his gaze softened and he dismissively said: "Don't be. I'm not." She was surely looking at him with confusion: How could he not be sorry that he missed an opportunity for his band to be signed? "It wouldn't have worked out anyway. It never does?" 

His expression faltered as he looked at her and now it was his turn to tip his head back and explain: "We were signed once before. Our band was called Parva. But we were dropped by the label and once you are dropped by a label no other signs you. You're treated like lepers were during the Middle Ages." He gave an ascerbic scoff and exclaimed: "One of those stuck-up Londoners didn't even stay to talk to us after we performed. He just up and left."

He gave a long, shaky sigh and then proceeded to confess to her: "It was never the life I wanted. This. Teaching art and being stuck in this town without ever being able to get away." She scooted her chair closer to him and then she lay her hand on his shoulder. She knew what it felt like to feel like there was no escape before her. To feel like you were trapped. 

He looked down at her hand on him with those impossibly blue eyes. 

His lips parted a fraction. 

His hand then came to rest on hers. 

He took her hand in his as his thumb started to draw repetitive circles on her knuckles. 

He wouldn't look away from her hands.

He whispered, furrowing his brow: "I have an affinity for these hands." 

She didn't move away from him.

\---    

Her arms were lying crossed on the establishment's table as she waited for him to arrive. 

The waiter who had come to her table when she had first arrived at the coffee house to take her order was looking at her again, wondering when she would finally order something or whether she had remained long enough here in the establishment for him to construe her not odering as her lack of intention to consume anything. 

The door to the coffee-house opened and Clara saw her father enter the establishment. 

She stood up as he spotted her and proceeded to approach her with a beaming smile on his face. 

Her father had not changed. His hair was still brown and his eyes were still warm and soft. And his smile was still as bright at the sight of her. And she still looked just like him. 

Every relative she had told her that she took after her father- not only in looks but in mannerisms as well. 

She sat down as soon as he arrived at her table and giving him a small smile, she greeted him. He sighed in relief at seeing her amenity and sitting down on the chair opposite her, he greeted her warmly: "Clara, sweetheart, it's good to see you."

They placed their orders to the waiter who looked relieved that she had finally ordered something instead of occupying the table, not bringing the café any profit. He asked her how he was as they sat opposite each other, sipping English Breakfast and eating their pieces of cake. She told him about how she was playing for the local parish and she told him about her new school and her classes and that she was doing well in them. She told him about Stevie while he told her about his new flat in London and that him and Sarah- his girlfriend- were doing well. 

Throughout the entire conversation, her mind kept drifting to him. But she didn't tell her father about him. What was she supposed to say? Oh, and by the way dad I have fallen in love with my art teacher and he probably likes me back and I have slept at his house unsupervised twice now. She couldn't imagine her father would like to hear that. 

But her mind was still preoccupied with him. As her father had just asked their waiter for the bill, she couldn't hold herself back: "What you did was wrong. Leaving me and mother for Sarah." He was looking at her with trepidation in his eyes, as if expecting her to throw a tantrum or scream at him. She wouldn't have thought of doing so. 

"And you knew this. You knew that falling in love with Sarah was the wrong thing to do. But you did anyways and you choose to go through with it." He was studying her carefully. He still anticipated her screaming at him, but it wasn't coming. He must've been confused. 

"What made you go through with it?," he blinked his eyes in confusion at her earnest question. Seeing her genuine interest at his motivation, he asked to clarify: "You are asking me why I decided to go with Sarah?" She nodded her head in affirmation. 

Her father's face fell and he sat back on his chair and passing a weary hand over his face, he began helplessly: "I... I can't answer that, sweetheart." He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know it myself. There were drawbacks to both outcomes. Staying with your mother would have made me unhappy, because I simply did not love her in that way anymore and there was someone just in front of me, just in my reach whom I loved. I knew that going Sarah would have hurt you and your mother and that pains me as well."

He scoffed slightly and shaking his head, he stated: "It was pretty much a no-win situation in any way you looked at it." She crossed her arms infront of her as she listened to her father: "I'm happy with Sarah but I don't have you in return." 

She lowered her head while hugging herself with her arms. She contine to listen to him intently: "I can't tell you about the moment I decided to go with Sarah. Because I don't know when and how I reached that moment."

Though she remained passive on the outside, an iciness clenched her heart in response to her father's words.    

\---

AN- So here's an insight as to why Ricky is feeling the way he is towards Clara. I hope this has made this whole situation seem a lot more realistic and profound. 

As always I enjoy your feedback and (fortwith) I will answer to it.


	12. Chapter 12

_"Blow out all the candles, blow out all the candles 'You're too old to be so shy,' he says to me so I stay the night Just a young heart confusing my mind, but we're both in silence Wide-eyed, both in silence Wide-eyed, like we're in a crime scene"- Candles, Daughter_

She was sitting in Stevie's colourful armchair and was looking out of the window into the starry night as her friend was busy searching out a record to be played. 

Soon the room was filled with the soft guitar riffs so characteristic for a Pink Floyd song and soon Syd Barrett started to sing  _'Into the distance a ribbon of black stretched to the point of no turning back'_. She leaned her head back as she listened to one of her favourite songs from her favourite band. 

"It was very nice of your dad inviting me to dinner," Stevie told her over the music. She grinned while not turning to face him and she answered: "I'm sure he is certain of your gratitude after you kept on thanking and thanking him." She looked towards him and he was sitting before the armchair and her on his grass-green rug, shrugging his shoulders. He stated simply: "I'm not used to my friends' parents inviting me to have dinner at such a nice restaurant." 

She stated very levely: "I told him about you yesterday and he really wanted to meet you. You and Jessica are my only real friends and my dad is always keen to meet my friends. When we were back in Cambridge, he would dote on Jessica the same way." 

They were silent for a while after that, listening to the wonderfully tragic words of Pink Floyd songs. 

It was during  _Comfortably Numb_  that Stevie talked to her again: "There's been something on my mind lately." He seemed uncomfortable talking to her about whatever he wanted to talk about. He was wringing his hands and he seemed to avoid looking at her. Then he continued hesitantly: "Look I have no idea if you remember this, you were drunk and you probably had a lot of other things in your mind at that night." 

With a sinking feeling in her gut, Clara realised what Stevie wanted to talk to her about. She let him finish: "I've been fighting with myself about talking to you about this, but..." He swallowed heavily as if swallowing away his trepidations: "You are my  _best_  friend and I just need to talk to you about this." 

She was waiting anxiously for Stevie to stop talking around the issue and come straight out and say it. She saw something change in his blue eyes as if they had steeled themselves and they both squared their shoulders- him in determination and her in preparation. He finally came to the point: "You told me you liked, Mr. Wilson." 

Though she had known very quickly after he had started talking what he wanted to address, hearing him say it out loud still felt like a blow to her gut. She looked down and exhaled shakily. She could cry- she almost did cry if she didn't proceed to frantically blink away the burning sting in her eyes. 

She didn't want to cry in front of Stevie. 

It's not that she didn't trust him- she just didn't want him to see that it meant so much to her. 

After she had managed to calm herself down- hopefully appearing stoic on the outside, she answered him: "Yes I do remember. I remember everything from that night." At that he looked down because he knew what she meant with that. He knew that she was refering to the fact that she knew of his feelings for her.

He shook his head and tried to placate: "Look it doesn't matter. At the moment I'm only concerned about you." She should have felt touched at his selfless attitude. Yet try as she might she couldn't shake the pang of irritation that ran through her at his persistence.

 _He_  hadn't been like that. He'd been gentle and sensitive. He'd let her divulge everything to him out of her own free-will.  

 She gave a low sigh and she tried to remain patient as she tried to dispel his worry: "Look it's normal. A lot of girls have small crushes on their teachers at least once in their lives. There's nothing to worry about."His disappointed expression was like a bath of cold water to her. 

They both knew that she was lying through her teeth. But she couldn't go back now. She had to stick by her words. Eventhough she felt like she needed Stevie. She felt as if she should have told him because she felt that she was standing close- so close to falling off an imaginary precipice. 

And she knew that her landing would break her. 

Stevie couldn't catch her. Nobody could catch her. 

And she was already too far over the edge to be pulled back. 

She was destined to fall into pieces. 

But she felt that telling Stevie would have somehow made her ruin easier to bear. 

"Just be careful, ok," he muttered lowly and warmly. "Even if it is just a crush, take care of yourself Clara Rose."   

_The child is grown, the dream is gone, I have become comfortably numb._

\---

The students were piling out of the classroom as the bell had just rung, signalling the end of the class and the end of the school day. 

She was currently finishing packing up her art supplies as the last student drifted out of the room and she was left alone with her teacher. Usually Stevie waited for her as she was always the last one cleaning up in art, but today he had told her a hasty 'goodbye' while rushing out of the room, having explained to her in lunchbreak that his football practice had been moved to today. 

As soon as the last student had stepped out of the class and she could hear the sound of their footsteps becoming lower and lower, she looked over her shoulders at him. A smile tugged at her lips when she saw that he was already looking at her, leveling a bright smile at her while leaning on his table with his arms crossed out infront of his chest 

Her expression caused him to uncross his arms from infront of him. He studied her and then he bit his lower lip. An unfamiliar warmth coiled in her belly and she turned around to face him. He minutely nodded his head back, as if beckoning her to him. 

He looked at her with an encouraging expression in his eyes.

She was about to move towards him when she heard someone step into the classroom. 

Instinctively, she turned away from im and back towards the sink where she was cleaning out her dirty brushes. 

Their warm silence was broken by a loud, female voice exclaiming jubilantly: "Ricky!" Out of the corner of her eyes, Clara looked towards the new arrival to see a young, blonde woman- probably about her teacher's age- moving towards him.  

Her hands were working furiously under the tap to get the brushes clean. "Camilla..." she heard her teacher's soft voice utter and in response the woman answered: "I got out of work early and I thought that if I pick you up we could go on an impromptu date." 

She was packing her things but at the sound of their plans, she had to prevent herself from doubling over in pain. 

She felt so stupid. 

She was stupid.

How could she have believed that her teacher- fifteen years her senior, who did not appear to like her at all- could possibly reciprocate her feelings in any manner? 

She shouldered her backpack. 

She ran out of the classroom without a single glance towards the couple at the front. 

Had she looked at him she would have seen her art teacher looking after her rapidly retreating form with longing blue eyes. 

\---

She walked home in the rain. 

She only realised when she was drying herself off at home that she had been crying all the way back home.

As she dried herself, her face just wouldn't get dry for some reason. 

\---

She was lying on her side, facing her aquamarine blue wallpaper. 

She had just taken a shower and dressed in a warm and comfortable jersey top and bottom, with her damp hair hanging down her back, she was lying listlessly in her bed. 

And she was questioning herself how she could have ever thought her teacher reciprocated her feelings in any manner. It had been highly pretentious of her to believe so. He was her teacher and him having any feelings for her would not only be legally but also morally wrong. And he had a girlfriend. 

And she wasn't the type of girl that would ever entice a man to do something wrong. She wasn't beautiful, confident and alluring as her father's secretary had been. There wasn't anything to her that would make anyone want to do something that was so utterly prohibited. 

She gritted her teeth as she asked herself how she could have gotten this so wrong. 

How could she have misinterpreted his behaviour so much? Was she so bad at reading people? Or had she been so consumed by her feelings for him that she had just imagined things?

Yet how could she interpret him wrong? He'd called her his 'little bird', he'd said everything he had said to her. And he'd told her things that were entirely inappropriate and unusual to the relationship they were supposed to have. He'd been only short of telling her outright that he had feelings for her.

She closed her eyes and then opening them again, brown eyes flashed in indignation. 

No, she didn't interpret him wrong. She couldn't have.

Not when he'd told her that he was thankful she had come to him. 

She was almost unsure what she preferred: the pain at having gotten her hopes about his feelings crushed or her anger that, despite having a girlfriend, he would behave this way around her. 

She was utterly intolerant towards adultery. 

She knew the pain it caused the betrayed. And she had been- albeit unknowingly- been involved in it.

She felt so sorry for the woman she met this afternoon. 

She flinched in her bed when she heard the phone ringing from downstairs. 

She stood up, figuring that it was probably her mother calling her to tell her when she would arrive home.

She trudged down to the phone and as soon as she picked it up, she heard him whispering pleadingly: "Clara, little bird,  _please_  listen to me." 

A cold shiver raced down her back. Primarily not from the fact that he was calling her but that he had been so unattentive as to talk to her in that manner. He didn't know who had picked up the phone. He didn't know if it was her or her mother on the other end of the line.   

Did he fathom the consequences of his actions?

She hissed into the speaker: "Are you mad? What if my mother had picked up the phone?" He answered her with silence, showing her that he had not considered this possibility. She shook her head at his lack of foresight, while she asked herself if it was something characteristic of him or just present in this situation.

"Look it doesn't matter now, you picked up the phone," he tried to deflect the situation. She scoffed disbelievingly as he continued: "Look just let me explain what you saw today, I..." She interrupted him, uncaring if she was rude and that she was going against the social etiqutette that had been instilled in her: "You don't have to explain anything."  _I know what I saw_ , is what she thought but instead she added: "You don't owe me an explanation."

This was her chance- her chance to dismiss him and to derail whatever this was becoming. So she stated in a cold voice that would have even chilled her mother: "I am your student you owe me no explanation about your private life. Just because you've shown me kindness a few times you don't have to feel in any way obliged to me. It's more I who should show you kindness."

"Well you're not being very good at it," he spat acerbically at her. She chuckled humourlessly at him and then she stated levely: "I am being good at it. That's why I am doing this." 

When he didn't answer anything to this, she whispered: "My mother is soon arriving I need to go now. Goodbye Mr. Wilson." She hung up and then she slid down the wall and burying her face in her knees she cried. 

\---

She avoided him like the plague after that fateful phone conversation that day.

She wouldn't look at him during registration only stating a small and curt  _Here_  when he called out her name. 

She started skipping her art classes on Mondays and Fridays, asking Stevie to tell Mr. Wilson that she wasn't feeling well should he ask why she was absent. 

He knew that she was there on the school day and her not feeling well was just a poor excuse. 

But he didn't dare ask her or confront her skipping his classes. 

He too was ignoring her. 

Three weeks passed like this. 

She didn't know if he was taking any measures against her skipping. She found that she didn't care if he was. And she hated that- she hated him for it, because she had always been so attentive and keen on her grades and on rules and on not skipping from her responsibility. Anytime that Jessica had tried to convince her to skip so that they could go shopping, she had been impossible to persuade. 

He had caused her to become a careless person. 

It was a Friday afternoon and Stevie had decided to skip classes with her.  He was currently trying to convince to come out with him tonight- just the two of them- as his uncle owned a local pub and would let them in to have some of his legendary fish and chips and for them to share half a pint of cider. 

Stevie usually tried to get her to agree to come out with him, but she was always against it and impossible to persuade. It usually ended with Stevie either going out with one of his other friends or more usually staying in with her, either listening to music or watching a movie. 

But as he talked at her, she thought about staying home and the threat that came along with it. Because the peacefulness of her home was bound to be accompanied by thoughts of him. And the thought of staying in and being plagued by not being able to get him off her mind as had been the case, the last two weeks was so horrifying that she found herself agreeing to go out with Stevie. 

So this is how she found herself being ushered into a pub by Stevie's uncle Michael. The man with the smiling, twinkling eyes and the large and rotund form had moved here two years ago from Scotland and opened a small pub in West Yorkshire that had become very popular with the population in Leeds. 

It was a small, comfortable establishment placed quite centrally in the Central Business District in Leeds. It was the cellar of one of the large concrete skyscrapers that was reached through the back entrance by going down the stairs. 

Michael had greeted them at the entrance, ushering them past the doorman into the warm cosy interior of his business. The walls, ceiling and floor were lined with honey-coloured wood and the cushion of the booth and chairs were dark, emerald green in colour which gave the place a very warm feeling. As far as social surroundings went, Clara was comforted so much by the warmth of the pub that she was able to disregard how constraining it felt with the amount of people that were in here and the smoky, dewy air around them from the large number of smokers. 

Stevie's uncle ushered them through the dense crowd to a small booth and as soon as they had sat down, he had winked at them and told them that he would be soon arriving with two portions of fish and chips and half a pint of cider for them to share. 

Clara leaned back and looking away from the small, wooden stage filled with instruments she looked at her friend's delighted face. He called out to her over the loud music: "I'm very glad you came, Clara. We will have a lot of fun tonight." She gave him a bright smile and nodded her head, enthusiastically. If she was here, she might as well do her best to enjoy herself. 

And she had been enjoying herself. Stevie had not promised too much from the fish and chips and they had become two very large portions from his uncle. And the cider was quite sweet and not bitter and strong-tasting as the concoction that she had drank at the house party had been

She had been having a very good time. Stevie's uncle beside having developed a very nice and comfortable establishment seemed to have superb taste in music and he'd been playing indie and alternative songs. So she and Stevie were eating the delicious fish and chips and she was enjoying listening to the music and talking to her friend. In short, she was enjoying herself. 

But then her eyes went to the entrance and her smile fell as soon as she saw her teacher arriving. The woman- his girlfriend- was hanging on his arm and he was being followed by four other men, some of which had a female companion with them, others not.

She looked down quickly, hoping her dark hair would curtain her features from him. But she kept watching him from beneath her lashes. Him and the group he entered with went straight to the bar where they proceeded to order what they wanted to consume. He received a large, pint of beer soon enough and dislodging himself from his girlfriend's hold, he turned around to study the pub crowd. She gritted her teeth as she waited for the inevitable- he would spot them. And sure enough his blue eyes soon came to rest upon her. 

His eyes widened in surprise and she looked away from him. She could feel the heat of his gaze as he wouldn't look away from her. 

"The Kaiser Chiefs," she heard Michael's loud, jubilant voice boom. She looked back towards the bar to see Stevie's uncle enthusiastically greeting him and his friends. As he shook, Michael's hand he was looking towards the middle-aged Scotsman but soon enough he turned his gaze back towards her and she looked away once more. 

She no longer wished to engage in any sort of eye contact with him.

She heard Stevie state in annoyance: "Great, Mr.Wilson is here." His sarcasm was accompanied by a role of his eyes. 

"Oi lads it's been so long. I couldn't trouble you for a small song, could I," they heard Michael ask them pleadingly. She was picking at her yellow napkin, not looking towards the group. Stevie was observing them attentively enough for the both of them. 

Soon enough, Michael jeered in triumph and proceeded to assure every pub visitor: "Best rock band in Leeds I tell ya. They will make it big I tell ya." 

Stevie once again rolled his eyes and then proceeded to remark quite drily: "Well let's see what this band he always makes such a big deal about consists of." He turned around to have a look at the stage and at the same time, she looked up to watch them.  

Him and the other men who had been accompanying him were currently picking up their instruments. As soon as they had organized themselves, a curly-haired fellow who was playing the guitar by the looks of it, said into the microphone: "We are Kaiser Chiefs and we are playing you something a bit new from our very own Ricky Wilson." The ginger-haired man smiled to his friend at the acknowledgment. Clara ignored as his blue eyes flashed towards her. 

The guitarists started to play a quick beat and then he began to sing. 

Clara had imagined that his singing voice would be good. She found his normal voice incredibly pleasant to listen to. 

It wasn't the most melodious voice and some would have found his strong, coarse northern accent unappealing. 

But she liked the utter imperfection of it. 

Just as much as she liked the utter imperfection of his singing. 

_Everyday I love you less and less It's clear to see that you've become obsessed I've got to get this message to the press._

Despite wanting to be indifferent to him and his song, she ended up listening to his words with utter focus and she furrowed her brow at what she heard. 

_I know, I feel it in my bones I'm sick, I'm tired of staying in control Oh yes, I feel a rat upon a wheel I've got to know what's not and what is real Oh yes I'm stressed, I'm sorry I digressed._

Her jaw fell open in response to his lyrics. She knew she shouldn't be so presumptous. After all considering the fact that three weeks ago she had made a discovery about him that had been so unexpected it made her dizzy, she shouldn't assume anything about him. 

Yet she couldn't help but feel that this song was everything he had wanted to explain to her on the phone when he had called her to explain about his girlfriend. 

She looked to her side to see the blonde woman looking at her boyfriend with disbelieving eyes. 

_I can't believe once you and me did sex It makes me sick to think of you undressed Since everyday I love you less and less And everyday I love you less and less You're turning into something I detest And everybody says that you're a mess Since everyday I love you less and less._

She began to feel sick once she saw the hurt flash in the blonde's eyes. She felt so guilty that she felt she could throw up with the guilt she felt. 

She couldn't help but to feel responsible. 

She whispered to Stevie: "Do you mind if we leave now?" 

The boy turned towards her and after studying his friend, his face softened and he answered: "No, not at all." They both stood up and he took her by the hand and whispered: "Come on, we'll watch V for Vendetta at my house." 

They left the pub as the last guitar riff of the song was played.  

\---

AN- I hope you enjoyed this chapter. What did you guys think of my interpretation of 'Everyday I love you less and less'. I know that the main song writer was always Nick Hodgson but I thought I would change things for the purpose of this story (this is anyways AU so). I kind of imagined the song being an explanation of Ricky to Clara about his girlfriend and the refrain part (I'm tired of staying in control) is how he feels about having to deal with his feelings for Clara. 

I wanted to ask you if in your review you could give me one word to describe each character. So what word would you use to describe the personality of Clara, Ricky, Stevie etc. Just to help me see how you see the characters at the moment so that I know how I should develop them further. 


	13. Chapter 13

_"Jealousy Turning saints into the sea Turning through sick lullabies Choking on your alibis But it's just the price I pay Destiny is calling me Open up my eager eyes 'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside"- Mr. Brightside, The Killers_

"One last announcement concerning the arts department of the school," her headmaster's nasal voice drawled and Clara straightened her spine as she had sat slumped in the chair during this wednesday's assembly. 

She fixed her eyes to the front to watch the bald-haired, middle-aged principle in the brown, tweed suit and the lazy eye continue talking without sparing a glance at his audience: "As you are all aware we do not offer a music course at this school. However Mr. Carlton..." he gestured behind him where the teachers were sitting in two long chair rows to a younger, brown-haired man whom Clara had occasionally passed by in the hallways but who hadn't taught her as he taught Advanced Mathematics to sixth form. Her principal continued giving the man an acknowledging nod: "...has suggested offering a music course for Fifth and Sixth Form which he would be leading." 

She heard Stevie chuckle beside her and she knew that her eyes had literally lit up at the announcement that she would have the chance to take music as a school subject again. She had always adored it back in her school at Cambridge with the content of the class fascinating her and the teacher being her favourite. 

"Fifth and Sixth Formers will have the chance to switch from visual arts class to music during the second semester. If you are interested in doing so please fill out a form and hand it to your attendance teacher by the 30th of November. That would be all. Thank you," her principal finalized and with a gesture of his hand he dismissed the school while turning his back to the rising student body. 

Clara and Stevie left with the mass of students that streamed out of the aula. All the while Clara asked herself why she felt any misgivings about switching classes. She despised visual arts. She hadn't gone to visual arts for five weeks ever since that afternoon when that high-pitched voice had prevented her from going to him. 

And her visual arts grade was the lowest she had. 

There were a lot of advantages to switching to music: she was passionate about music, she didn't like visual arts, she wasn't good at it, she wouldn't see him anymore. 

And the last one was exactly the reason why she was hesitant to leave the class. 

If she left art, she would only have him as her attendance teacher and that only until the summer break as in Sixth form, Mr. Carlton would take over the post. 

She was so torn- she hadn't ever been so torn in her entire life. She knew that she should not see him, that she should maintain their contact as minimal as possible. Because it was like poking a sleeping tiger with a stick that kept getting shorter and shorter. To take any measures to distance herself from him would be the sensible thing to do. 

But-  _christ-_ she didn't want to be sensible with him. She... she  _liked_ him. She fancied him. She wanted to get to know him better.  

"So are you switching," her friend asked her as they sat down and waited for Mrs. Glosta to begin the class by asking them to open 'Sense and Sensibility' to page-so-and-so. 

She looked towards him and gave a curt nod in an unpredictable surge of determination.

\---

She handed in her signed form to switch classes next monday. 

Her mother had enthusiastically signed and given her permission for Clara to attend the course led by Mr. Carlton-  _finally, they are being a proper school and offering music-_ and any hesitance Clara might have still had, had been effectively obliterated because she knew her mother would...  _expect..._  her to do music. 

As she had been passing by his front table on her way out of attendance, she allowed the form to slip from her hand onto his wooden desktop. 

He didn't look up at her. 

As soon as the form came into his sight, his pen froze mid-motion on the paper where he was recording full attendance. 

Something flashed in his eyes at the sight of her form and whatever it was it made her run out of the classroom. 

It was only later when she was lying in her bed-  _unable to fall asleep-_ she realised that it had been something akin to heartbreak. 

\---

Mrs. Glosta had told her to go to the headmaster's office at the beginning of class as he had something he wished to discuss with her.

She had never been at her headmaster's office. It was adjacent to the orange secretary-room that she had visited on her first day-  _where she'd seen him for the first time-_ and she'd had to announce to the bored secretary that she was scheduled to talk to the headmaster. 

Clara had been told to wait and sit down in one of the brightly-coloured, plastic chairs across the hall from the heavy oak-door that led to the headmaster's office. 

The door opened and the middle-aged man gave her a curt nod and asked her to come in. 

She followed his directions. The room was lined with bookcases upon which she could see many old and fancily bound works. Her headmaster made his way to behind a large desk and sat down on the chair. He gestured towards one of the chairs infront of the table and stated cordially: "Please sit down, Miss Buchanan." 

She gave her headmaster a tight smile and followed his demand. 

As she had been taught all her life, her spine straightened, she drew her shoulders back and looked at the man infront of her levely. 

She had been taught how to meet a person of authority as early as she had turned three years old. 

She still remembered those afternoon teas with her great-aunt who would manually straighten out any fault in her posture and had laid a heavy book on her head to make her sit properly when five-year-old still slumped in her chair. 

A slump in her form was almost painful to her. 

"Ms. Buchanan I have received your form requesting to switch to music," the nasal voice of her headmaster drawled. She found his voice entirely unpleasant if Clara was entirely honest. The drawling tone grated on her ear and she found it utterly devoid of the Yorkshire lilt that she had admittedly grown quite fond of. 

"You are interested in taking Mr. Carlton's offer and I see here that you even play the harp," he was studying her form and though she asked herself why he felt the display was necessary because it wasn't as if he was seeing the form for the first time. Yet she kept her expression blank. 

In an unemotional voice she confirmed: "Yes, sir." Her headmaster gave a curt nod and turned his bespectaled eyes towards her and explained: "Now Ms. Buchanan, both Mr. Carlton and I were delighted to receive your application to the music course considering your work at St. George's." She gave a small grateful smile in politeness at his praise. 

"However," Clara's smile fell from her face as her headmaster's expression turned grave and serious. "It has been brought to my attention that you haven't attended your art classes in the last two months without any appropriate reason or excuse." 

Her stomach dropped and a feeling of helplessness began to spread in her chest. Her indoctrinated behaviour was forgotten and tossed aside and she slumped in her chair, her jaw slackened as her headmaster continued: "Now I believe that you can understand that with Mr. Carlton's being new it is very fragile and we must be able to be absolutely sure we can rely on the attendee's. Unfortunately Ms. Buchanan both Mr. Carlton and me are unsure of this at the moment." 

"But... with the utmost respect, I am reliable, sir," Clara stammered in a last attempt but she knew that it would be in vain. He cocked his head in doubt and stated: "Well, Mr. Wilson doesn't seem to believe so. He was quite adamant to highlight your lack of attendance. I believe that he is very much displeased with your handling of his class, Ms. Buchanan." She swallowed heavily at this. 

As he gave her back the form with a large, red 'Rejected' stamped on her ticket out, she had to swallow the large lump that had formed in her throat. She was about able to politely leave her headmaster's office, but as soon as the heavy wooden door had a wildness filled her and she stormed towards the art room. 

Later she would condemn herself for her impulsiveness. But now she didn't care as she ripped the door to the art room open. 

He raised his head at her stormy entrance and his eyes widened at the sight of her. She surely looked like a vengeful individual with a furious expression on her face and a few hairs falling down around her face which had come loose from her red hairbow. 

She paid no mind to his surprise and stalked up to the table- utter fury and shame fuelling her- and she slapped her red-marked form on the table. She hissed: "How dare you?" His eyes flickered down to the offending paper before he looked up at her and he stated level-minded: "They asked me for references about you. I thought it was worth mentioning your absence from my class for the last two moments." 

She deflated at that. Her anger was passing and was being replaced by an icy feeling of betrayal. Though his answer was justified she couldn't help but feel betrayed. 

Each of their moments, each of their interactions was as if blown away. 

"You are a liar," she whispered, loud enough for him to hear. Her hands were hanging limply at her side and she was looking at him with all the hurt and heartbreak she felt. "You told me you cared about me but you lied. You don't feel an inch of care towards me." She shook her head and turning on her heel she whispered in finality: "You care about no one and nothing but yourself and your pain."    

An irongrip kept her in place. She could do better than being surprised. She knew him well enough now to know that he would not just let her go. There was no chance that he would just let her leave with the last word. His pride wouldn't allow it.

"How can you be so cruel," he hissed venomously at her. She didn't turn towards him. She was numb against his tight grip on her wrist. She shook her head at his accusation and gave a high, disbelieving scoff: "I'm being cruel?" 

"Yes," he exclaimed self-righteously. His hand tightened on her wrist and she gritted her teeth at his bruising grip. "How can you ask me to let you go when you are the only thing making this hellhole bearable?"

She blinked her eyes-  _her heart spluttered in her chest._     

"I don't want to."

She breathed in. Her heart started again. 

"Please don't make me."

Her heart picked up speed. 

"Please stay." 

Her mouth became dry. She felt light-headed. 

"Stay and make my life bearable." 

His hand had loosened from her wrist and he was holding her hand now- the same ones he had  _an affinity_ for. 

She was damning herself- she knew this.

She laced her fingers with his. 

He exhaled shakily behind her. 

He tugged her back gently and soon she was in his arms, surrounded by his warmth and the smell of cigarettes and aftershave which was so him that her lungs seemed to constrict at it. 

She was trembling against his chest. 

Her heart was beating wildly in her chest as if it was a caged wildanimal wanting to escape its captivity. 

He tightened his arm around her and she exhaled slowly and closing her eyes she rested her head on his chest. 

She felt him loosening the ribbon from her hair so that her hair fanned out around her. He then brushed his fingers through her hair. 

She heard him sigh. She could hear his heartbeat.

He rested his head on the top of hers and then whispered contemplatively: "I'm pretty sure my heart is exploding in my chest at the moment." 

With her free arm she encircled his waist and hugged him to her.  

\---

Though it was unspoken, both of them knew that she had forgiven him that day. 

The official words didn't have to be spoken: they had clung to each other as if they were each other's succour.

She had forgiven him. The rational part of herself condemned herself for this. 

The issue of music classes had been put away with. 

The issue of her two month absence had been brought to the headmaster's attention and he couldn't look past it. 

Which is the reason for Clara's second visit to the man's office. Whereas before, Clara had been alone with the middle-aged man, they were now joined by two other people. Her mother had been called to discuss the reason why she was allowing Clara to skip classes. And the affected teacher, Mr. Wilson, had been called in as well being both her attendance teacher and the one whose class she had skipped. 

As she was sitting beside her mother, whom she could feel fuming with fury, she listened to the grating, nasal voice of her headmaster: "I'm sure, Mrs. Buchanan, that inface of Clara's absence Mr. Carlton and myself feel very reluctant to allow her to join the music programme." 

"This is completely unlike my daughter, Mr. Michaelis, Clara has always been raised to be responsible. Such behaviour as you have brought to attention has never been tolerated in our household," her mother stated adamantly. Clara looked up to see her mother giving her a disdainful side-glance. Clara swallowed heavily at the sight of it.

She looked away from her mother and towards him. He wasn't looking at her like he had been since she had walked into this room. His blue eyes were leveled angrily at her mother. 

His knuckles were white.

"Believe me, Mr. Michaelis, I will take appropriate measures against this." A cold shiver raced down her spine. 

\---

She was currently reading the last chapter of 'Sense and Sensibility' when she heard the sound of something hitting against the glass of her window. 

She looked up startled. Soon enough the sound was repeated and she stood up convinced that she hadn't just imagined it. She opened the window and leaning out of the window ledge she looked down. 

Her eyes widened in surprise and her heart quickened when she saw that he was down there and was looking up at her with a small smile. 

She leaned her head on her hand and stared down at him, biting her lower lip. 

His eyes seemed to be shining up at her as he called up: "Well this is very reminscent of something isn't it?" She shook her head at his cheeky expression and had to screw her lips shut to prevent a chuckle from erupting. Though she was currently serving out her weekend-long sentence in her room-  _her mother had expressly forbid her from coming out until Monday Morning-_ she felt quite light-hearted now that he was here. 

She called down, keeping her voice not too loud lest her mother hear her: "What are you doing here?" He shrugged his shoulders: "Well I didn't have much to do this Friday evening and I thought I'd reenact some 'Romeo and Juliet'." She chuckled lowly but furrowed her brows at the same time. He picked up her expression and asked her: "What you don't enjoy 'Romeo and Juliet'?" 

She shrugged her shoulders but then straightened her spine in alarm as he moved towards the large tree that was standing in front of her window. She hissed in fright: "What are you doing?" He flashed her a teasing grin and explained: "Well as you can't come down, I'm coming up." He took off his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up. And then he proceeded to climb up the tree. 

It was exerting. His focused and weary expression showed that much. On his way up he called to her: "You still haven't explained your dislike for 'Romeo and Juliet'." She was eyeing him worriedly, afraid he'd fall down and hurt himself. But at her silence he stopped and looked up at her with a demanding expression. She started warily: "It's not that I don't like it. It's just... They are selfish and the story in itself is absurd." 

He was climbing up the last few metres and he carried on the conversation with her normally: "People say it's the greatest love story ever told." How could he be talking so calmly with her? She was painfully aware that he could fall, but she humoured him and explained: "It's just not for me. The whole 'Love at first sight thing' I don't believe it." He had just reached the large, thick branch that led to her open window. He scooted along it and swung himself into her room. 

Her heart sank with relief. Her eyes widened when he swooped towards her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He smiled down at her tenderly and stated: "It does happen, you know."     

She felt unbearably hot. 

He was looking over his shoulders towards her harp. He was smiling fondly at the instrument. She walked over to it and called over her shoulders: "You want me to play you something?" He smiled towards her and gave a small nod.

She started playing him the new Beethoven piece her mother had bought her the score for. 

When she finished he was giving her a tight smile. She shook her head and with a humourless smirk she stated: "You don't like this type of music." 

He shook his head sadly and stated: "Neither do you." She shook her head but shrugged her shoulders and stated sadly: "What I've wanted has never been a big factor." She looked up at him and stated: "It's much too often at odds with what is right." He grimaced. 

She whispered: "I'm sorry."

She heard him stand up. He chuckled sadly and gave her a kiss on the crown of her head. Then he whispered: "It's alreet. You can play me something nicer tomorrow." He then left. 

\---

And he did return. 

He returned to her on Saturday. 

And on Sunday. 

\---

_AN- I hope you enjoyed. Please tell me what you thought about this chapter. Love, maria._  


	14. Chapter 14

_"And so, you built a life on trust Though it starts, with love and lust And when your house, begins to rust Oh, it's just, metal and dust"- Metal & Dust, London Grammar_

"I broke up with Camilla."

It was silent before. She had just finished playing him her harp-cover of  _Asleep_ that he had asked her for a few minutes ago. They had been silent until now. 

She didn't know what to do with his declaration. She was not naive enough to believe that he had just stated it off-handedly. Like she was his friend that he was informing about a new development in his life. 

She could have talked this into herself before he'd spent the entire weekend with her. But no matter how much obliviousness she would fake, she could not do so now as he reclined on her desk chair and fixed her with a blue and impenetrable gaze. 

She exhaled heavingly and not looking away from him, she stated: "I'm sorry." Something flickered in his eyes and tossing his arm over the backrest of her chair, he shook his head and with a light smirk he scoffed: "No, you are not." She pursed her lips and with her fingers still resting on the string of her harp she was looking down at her stripey socks when he added: "At least I don't want you to be." 

She swallowed heavily at that. 

She had known the second the words had left his mouth that his declaration about the end of his relationship was accompanied by a sort of warped expectation on his part. As if telling her obliged her for something in return. As if breaking up with Camilla-

She had known the seconds the word had left his mouth. But she dared not accuse him before her suspicion was confirmed. The certainty of what she had suspected hit her like a blow to her gut. 

She must have been silent for a long time, because she could hear the urgency in his voice at her unresponsiveness: "Say something!" She looked up and with a sad face she asked him: "What could you possibly want me to say?"

He looked at her for a long time with an unreadable expression. She squirmed beneath his insistant gaze. And then his face dropped. She looked away as she couldn't stand the disappointment she saw in his blue eyes.

She heard him heave a heavy sigh. It was the sound of him getting up that caused her to look up at him. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she saw him make his way towards the open window. She called out, intent on stopping him from leaving- she didn't want him to leave: "Seriously, you are leaving?!"

He did not see fit to deign her outcry with a response and his ignorance of her stung. Self-righteously indignated she spat: "Just because I didn't do what you wanted me to do, we are just not going to be friends anymore."

He had just swung his right leg over the window frame, but her outcry caused him to stop in his track and he turned back towards her and scoffed: "Don't be a child, Clara."

She rose from her stool and indignantly she exclaimed: "Don't call me a child." He stepped back into her room and looking down at her, equally upset as her he called out: "Then don't act like one."

In two stormy strides, he had reached her and grabbing her by her shoulders, he leaned down to her so that their faces were close. So close that the tips of their noses were touching. Like he was telling her a secret- looking back at it, she supposed that he was in fact- he whispered: "I don't want to be your friend."

She felt hypnotised by his proximity and she wondered if someone else had taken a hold over her body- some third party that was much bolder and more confident than herself- because she heard her voice, she was sure it was her voice, ask him something she would have never dared to, considering the Pandora's box it threatened to open.

She asked him: "What do you want?"

His expression was no longer fierce and determined as it had been. He looked searching as his eyes flickered over every aspect of her face. He seemed almost as if he wanted to drink her in- burn every detail of her face into his minds in the fear that she would evaporate any second.

His adam's apple bobbed and with a horse voice, he confessed: "I don't know. I don't know what I want. All I know is that I don't want to be your friend." His eyes came to rest on hers and he asked her, turning the tables on her: "What do you want?" She shook her head. She was no longer beneath the spell of his gaze and she felt herself coming back bit by bit.

"I don't want to be your friend either," she sighed.

* * *

The problem with their mutual revelation is that it left Clara with no idea how to go on.

They could no longer hide behind the pretense that their interaction was platonic and friendly in nature. That the time they spent together was in the pretense of seeking a friendship.

And that was the only pretense that was acceptable considering their respective positions. And Clara was left with no idea how they would proceed from now on.

Now each second-long lingering of their eyes on each other was loaded. They started to evade the discreet greetings they gave each other when they passed each other on the hall.

And by the absence of his soft smiles and of his lingering whenever he passed by her seat during art class, he was equally as clueless as to how they would go on.

* * *

_Fall had sneaked up on her._

_Perhaps it was wrong of her to say this. It wasn't as if she had just woken up one morning to goldening, falling leaves and crisp air shaking the wooden frame of her windows._

_Fall hadn't entreated on her in the blink of an eye. As if she had just looked away for a second and the warmth of summer had fled._

_She was logical enough to know that summer had slowly turned into fall as it did year after year._

_Yet when she woke up one morning and her jaw slackened seeing the green crown of the tree beside her window- the tree he climbed up on- had turned yellow, it surely felt like fall had just been lurking around the corner to surprise her with its sudden appearance._

* * *

Giving a low and weary sigh, she dropped the phone back on the receiver as she bid her father goodbye.

She knew she was being unreasonable, yet she couldn't prevent herself from looking at the phone with silent resentment.

Her father had given her resonable enough reasons as why a visit of hers to his flat in London would be badly timed at this moment- he was currently supervising the biggest venture of his architecture firm: the build of a giant shopping in the heart of Abu Dhabi desert. He'd been apologetic enough but at his rejection, Clara could not help but question whether he had been truly genuine when saying that he wished for them to build up their relationship.

But it wasn't only the fact that her father had more or less rejected her that weighed heavily on Clara. 

Fall break was upon her. Two weeks where she was not required to go to school. And her mother had received vacations during this same time.

They hadn't planned to go anywhere.

 _No,_ their relationship was becoming colder by the second and except for the curteous  _good morning or good night_ , her and her mother didn't converse any longer. 

She froze mid-step on her way up the stairs and with a dull pang of regret, she wondered how their relationship had deteriorated to such an extent.

They had never been close. Not like Jessica and her mother who were certifiably _friends._

And Clara felt like she was living with a stranger.

She opened the door to her bedroom and she was so caught up in her thoughts that she got a much bigger fright that she would have if she'd been more attentive to her surroundings, when she saw him standing in her room.

She was just about able to strangle of her surprise shout-out by raising her hand to her mouth. When the first wave of shock passed, she breathed heavily and muttered beneath her breath: "Christ!" as she moved past him and sat down at the stool at her desk.

Taking one last breath to calm her frantic heart, she asked him, cocking a brow: "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged his shoulders and leaning on the window ledge, he explained: "Came to see you."

A month ago, such a statement would have caused her breath to hitch with surprise and for her to become glassy-eyed with the affection of her schoolgirl crush.

But now...

She still grew warm at his words.

Not with surprise.

With something else.

Something she couldn't- _wouldn't-_ name.

They were long past the stage where they had to guess the other's feelings.

Yet she still muttered- obstinately: "I thought you didn't want to be friends."

He exhaled at her stubbornness with frustration and passed a weary hand over his face.

He wasn't looking at her as he answered: "Yes, I don't. But it's all we can be."

And she hadn't expected those words from him. And despite the fact that she had steeled herself against the hopelessness of their situation, despite the fact that she had spent countless nights tossing and turning and telling herself that nothing would ever come from it, despite _everything_ his words caused her to feel a sharp pain in her chest. And she raised her hand to rub at where she suspected her heart was. 

"And I don't know about you. But I prefer to have you in my life than not at all."

Her arms were crossed over her chest- as if she had to protect herself from his words- and she looked to her side. And then she blurted out: "My father doesn't want me to visit him."

He answered nothing. 

She looked towards him to see him looking at her with furrowed brows, surprised at her sudden change of topic. Then he shook himself- as if from a stupor- and looking at her with something akin to encouragement she continued: "I mean... I've just come off the phone with him and I was asking him whether I could come down to London with him to spend break with him, like he'd offered when he visited. But he can't because he has his hands full with a huge project. And I'm just being silly and stupid, I know. And petulant. But I do feel rejected."

She pressed her lips together in a white line to physically stop herself from continuing babbling to him.

It was as if she had broken like a dam.

Never before in her life had she ever uttered a negative word about her parents.

This was the first time. And to him.

"Sweetheart..." she heard him utter softly. Startled, she looked towards him to see him mustering her with a warm smile, his head cocked to her side. And his eyes were soft- _painfully, impossibly soft-_ "You are fifteen years old. You are allowed to be petulant and unreasonable and silly."

She deflated at his words and at _the look,_ while he continued: "You are always so prim and decent and proper. And it's one of the things which fascinate me..." the _about you_ was left unspoken "But I also wonder how you stand it because it must be tiring- _so fucking tiring-_ to be like that the whole time." 

She looked at him. 

And she looked and she looked at him. 

And it was like she was seeing him for the very first time. 

* * *

"How do you like your tea," she opened her eyes starled at the sudden question. She looked up at him- it had started out innocently enough with them sitting beside one another on the colourful rug in her bedroom and somewhere along the way she had come to have her head lying on his lap with his index finger and thumb playing with the ruby red ribbon in her hair.

At her confused expression, he explained simply: "I just realized that it's _you_ and I don't know how you take your tea." 

She closed her eyes and her tensed shoulders relaxed and he continued to twirl the ruby ribbon between his fingers. And usually she would have thought the question banal and condemned him for it- like it mattered how she preferred her tea- they were _here_ and how she took her tea shouldn't matter. 

But the question was loaded.

Who would have thought the mode of preparation of her tea would become so important.

"Milk, no sugar," she answered him simply and he 'hmmed' contemplatively.

She sat up from her position. Her hair was mussed and she could see a flash of something as she smiled at him wickedly. Then she stated: "My turn."

He was looking at her expectantly- _delightedly-_ at the playful gesture on her part. She was so usually so grave about this-  _about them._ He would take any respite she offered. 

"Why did you become a teacher," the mischevious smile fell from his lips. But she continued regardlessly: "I mean it's obvious that pedagogy isn't your passion. Why are you doing it then?"  

She supposed that perhaps their questions would seem disproportionate to another. He had asked her something as superficial as the way she preferred drinking her tea and she was questioning his life choices. But she paid that no mind. Just like he felt that asking her how she preferred her tea would give him a deeper insight to her, she needed to know this to begin to comprehend him. 

He sighed: "The same reason you play at the church every Sunday." She continued staring at him, comprehending something so utterly fundamental that she couldn't believe she had overseen it. 

And he voiced her exact thoughts: "You would think that we are so different. In every manner diametrically opposed. But it isn't like that, is it? There are things in which we are just the same... Like how we like to drink our tea."

* * *

He'd handed her his old phone.

She'd held it once before. That night when she'd run from home and he'd tried to rescue her. When she had been frightened of him and he'd thrown the phone to her as an assurance, telling her to call the police if he did anything she felt was untoward.

Now he was pressing the phone into her hand and with a gruff 'For you' she was left looking at him disbelievingly.

She was shaking her head and telling him that she couldn't possibly take his phone and that he had no obligation to give her anything, he rolled his eyes and tried to appease her: "I bought a new one. A better model. I want you to have this one. It's for me, really. So that I can call you." And despite the fact that he had been so blasé about the explanation, she couldn't overhear the possessive note that had slipped into his voice during the last sentence.

She stopped trying to push the phone back in his hands and her arms slackened. She only tightened her grip on the device.

* * *

He called her.

Just after she had gotten the phone, she wondered if he even would.

She was used to people having intentions but then not persuing them out of sheer negligence.

So after he'd left, she had hidden the phone beneath her pillow, in order to conceal it from her mother who would surely question how she had come to own such a device. And she'd somehow written it off as something she would never use. But that she would treasure.

For years to come.

She flinched on her bed when she heard a muffled ringtone coming from beneath the covers.

Groggy, as she had been about to drift off to sleep, she fished it from beneath the cloth. The display of the phone showed that it was currently midnight. She pressed on the green key and lifted the phone to her ears. His voice soon filled her ears.

She didn't know then that he was more than intent on persuing what he'd wanted to achieve on his phone.

She didn't know his determination then.

She didn't know their whispered conversations would become a nightly ritual.

* * *

_She still remembered weekends in her house._

_She wouldn't claim that every single weekend she had spent from ages 15 to 18 had stuck to her mind and that if asked she could recite everyone of them in the minutest detail. Her mind's capacity didn't stretch that far._

_But she could remember details. Impressions that had stuck to her mind like glue._

_She remembered that at times she believed that she could hear the sound of the grass from their front lawn growing outside, considering how quiet the house was. And that the only source of sound were the walls and the floor and the furnishing around her._

_She recalled that she always felt warm in her house. Which was odd, as a more appropriate temperature for the house should have been cooler, reflecting the state of their inhabitant's relationship._

_She recalled the smell of freshly baked pastry, wafting from the kitchen window from the neighbouring house, where its elderly inhabitant had baked another of her pies, a piece of which she would kindly bring over later._

* * *

It was Saturday and he'd convinced her to sneak out with him. 

She was biting her lower lip, feeling utterly rebelious as she was shuffling through old, rock records from _Joy Devision_ and  _David Bowie_.

It was Saturday morning and usually she would be having breakfast with her mother. It was the one thing the woman insisted on. Them sharing the breakfast table. 

Instead, she told her mother that she wasn't feeling well and excused herself asking to remain in bed.

But she had sneaked out while he was waiting with his car for her infront of her house. 

Instead of having breakfast with her mother, she'd gone to the local record store with him. 

Suddenly a warm palm came to rest on the small of her back. A small smile twisted her lips at the gesture. 

He looked over his shoulders at the record she was holding and with an almost imperceptible smile, he proceeded to tell her something about it. But she didn't listen. Her mind was fully encompassed by the fact that they were standing close-  _so close._

"Clara," it wasn't his soft voice that broke her entrancement. The timbre of it sounded utterly-  _terribly-_ familiar to her. And her head snapped to the side. 

Stevie was standing at the end of the aisle. His eyes were wide as he took in the sight before him. Her and their teacher standing suspiciously close to one another. 

She supposed that one of the reasons that Stevie and her had become friends was because he was one of the few people that managed to genuinely surprise her. He had done so when they first interacted and continued to do so even know with small gestures that came entirely unexpected to her- like when he would skip his football practice to listen to her practicing for her Sunday performance in Church. 

He surprised her now with his reaction. 

She had expected for, when his shock had passed, his face to twist with revulsion or perhaps even betrayal. 

But instead he became pale as a sheet and then he turned and ran from the store.

She was left, paralysed as she realised that he had looked at her with fear in his eyes. 

And then she ran. 

She barely paid mind to his demand of 'No, Clara' as shook him off and took after Stevie. 

* * *

AN- I am so sorry it took me this long to update. This last month I had to go to Brasil as my grandmother became very sick and I had to take care of her. Consequently I couldn't update. I'm quite sorry for the long wait. 

So, I decided that I should try to move Clara and Ricky's "relationship" further. Good move? Bad move? Please tell me what you thought. 

Love, maria

 


	15. Chapter 15

_"Just noise, white noise I'm hearing static, you're like an automatic You just wanna keep me on repeat and hear me crying"-White Noise, Disclosure_

* * *

She had somehow been able to catch up with Stevie despite her short legs and her lack of physical fitness. Later she would wonder whether he had purposely let her catch up to him. 

Cars whizzed and people walked past them without paying the obviously distressed teenagers any mind during the early, busy Saturday morning as they went about to fulfill their chores before relaxing for the remainder of the week.

Breathing heavily, Clara stretched out her arms when she was close enough and gently laid it ontop of Stevie's arm. At the touch of her hand on his checkered blouse, he whirled around and with a frantic expression, he exclaimed: "What the hell was that, Clara?" She stood stock-still at his question. Her chest lifted up and down at the exertion of having run after him. His blue eyes were wild as they flickered across her face.

She didn't know what to tell him. Slowly, her hand fell from his arm and she stood before him with her shoulders sagging and her face having contorted with a tragic expression. And she didn't know what to tell him. She respected her friend more than lying to him about this when the scene had been clearly unmistakeable.

She didn't know what to say.

Because there was no way she could describe _that_ with words. She couldn't voice  _that._ Voicing _that_ would be like dragging it out of the alternate dimension it consisted in into the cold reality of the world around them. And here  _that_ was unspeakable. 

He took a large, tormentous step towards her and grabbing her by the shoulders, he made her to face him. Yet she still averted her eyes to the side, studying the dusty, grey concrete beneath her trainers. He shook her like a rag-doll and with his voice frantic now, he pleaded: "Clara, please explain."

She closed her eyes softly. Her dark lashes came to rest on top of her cheeks like a landing butterfly.

He shook her again and his voice was still desperate and frightened: "Clara for pity's sake." Loathe to hear her friend sounding so distressed, she opened her eyes and looked up at him unhappily.  She had no words to explain what he had just witnessed. 

In truth, there was no need to explain anything. The scene had been so glaring in its obviousness: her looking happily through records as he stood behind her and had his hand tenderly on the nape of her neck. She believed that Stevie was clever enough not to mistake it for anything but what it was. 

And as she continued looking at him, he seemed to be slowly coming to the same realization. His eyes which had previously been flickering across her face for a sign of anything that belied his interpretation of what he saw seemed to give up their frantic search. His blue eyes became dark and dull and incredibly-  _terribly-_ sad. He let go off his tight hold on her shoulders and his arms sagged down beside him. 

He took a step away from her and as if he couldn't stand to look at her another second he looked away to his side. Or perhaps he didn't want to see her pain as he shook his head and whispered: "This is wrong, Clara." She gritted her teeth and flinched- not so much at the content of his words but the disappointment as he continued: "It's just  _bloody_ wrong. And he..." Stevie didn't finish. He didn't have to: the disdain and disgust on his face said more than any words could. 

He looked up at her after a few seconds of silence. People had still been bypassing them on the street and she wondered that no one seemed to care for them. And deep within her- in a part that wasn't preoccupied with the situation with Stevie- she mourned that people were so uncaring and self-absorbed. He told her: "I will report him. I have to." And the words were like an ice-cold grip to her heart. 

She took a step towards him. And he in response took a step back as if in fear that were she to take a single step towards him, his plans would be ruined. He looked at her tragically and whispered: "It's wrong, Clara. It's so bloody wrong. I have to inform the headmaster."

Then she realized. Whatever she said or did or tried there was no way she would be able to prevent Stevie from talking to the headmaster. Whatever was between them would come to light and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. Their lives were ruined. And perhaps they had been ruined long before that. Long before he'd climbed into her window and effectively sealed their fate. Or perhaps before he had overheard her audition at the Leeds Philharmonica. Perhaps even long before she had arrived that morning in the bright orange room and he had turned towards her for the first time.

But it didn't really matter did it? She could only look on to ruin that their lives had turned into. 

Stevie was starting to walk away and she stated uselessly: "I love him."

Her friend froze in his tracks. He had his back to her and she just expected him to continue walking, his disgust at her and at him only increasing.

But he looked at her over his shoulders and he whispered: "I think that was your first mistake."

And she could only watch on as he walked away.

* * *

_At times, she will listen to his songs._

_She will recognize the tune or the sound of his voice on the radio and she will turn up the volume and listen._

_She tortures herself._

_She usually isn't so arrogant as to presume anything but the nods at her are more than obvious_

Love's not a competition but I'm winning...

_The first time Stevie had heard it he had burned with jealousy and turned off the radio before she could finish listening in barely suppressed rage._

_This only confirmed her suspicions._

_Whenever she hears a song from his band she turns up the radio and listens. It has become a sort of perverse game between them: He writes and she listens._

_Stevie doesn't know she still listens to him._

_Stevie wouldn't understand._

* * *

She waited after ringing the bell to his flat. She didn't have to wait long until she heard his muffled voice through the intercom and he asked: "Who's there?" She tightened her arms around herself as she told him that it's her. The answer she got was the characteristic buzzing that came through the intercom that signalled the door had opened. 

She tredged up the stairs to the 2nd floor and he was already waiting for her with his arms crossed over his chest and leant on his wooden doorframe. He observed her closely as she walked up to him and she almost felt like a prisoner come to confess her crimes to her condemner.

She didn't need any verbal encouragement, his careful gaze was enough and she whispered: "He knows." He was silent- _deathly_ silent before he hissed: "What... _the fuck_ did you tell him?" He wasn't shouting. His voice was low- dangerously, scaringly low. It chilled her bones. She caught herself and stated: "Nothing. He figured it out on his own." And she delivered the final blow in a whisper: "He's going to inform the headmaster." 

Afterwards she looked up at him to see him pale. He was afraid- deathly afraid. She doesn't believe that he was unaware of the implications and the consequeces that _this_ would have. No... the guilt apparent on his face everytime they were together made it blindingly clear that he was more than conscious of what  _this_ entailed. So perhaps the expression she found so terrible now in his face was something akin to self-deprication. That he had indulged and compromised himself. And realized that it finally wasn't worse it all. 

And that's exactly what he said next in his gravelly voice: "You have ruined my life."

And then there was the bang of the door followed by deafening silence.

* * *

  _In a few years he will clarify to her that his accusation had not only pertained to the fact that there forbidden liaisons had come to light._

_It had not only pertained to the fact that his relations with her becoming public would have ruined his band's chances at success- no label would want to sign a band whose lead singer had been involved in a scandal with an underage girl._

_Of course this had all played into his accusation._

_But he will later reveal to her that there was another much more fundamental reason behind his accusation._

_He had also meant that she had ruined his life emotionally- that she had spoiled him because he wanted-_ wants-  _no other._

_And he couldn't have her._

_It still broke her heart._

_It still breaks her heart._

* * *

AN- I updated as quickly as I could. This chapter is shorter but I think considering the content it was already anough for you guys. 

One more chapter to go until the conclusion. And it will hopefully be explosive. 

Please tell me what you thought about the chapter. 

P.S. The main reason I write is for my loyal readers but I want to dedicate this chapter especially to hitandhope who was so awesome as to point out the song for this chapter. 


	16. Chapter 16

_"Due to lack of interest tomorrow is canceled let the clocks be reset and the pendulums held 'Cause there's nothing at all Except the space in-between finding out what you're called and repeating your name"- Ruby, Kaiser Chiefs_

* * *

She looked at the closed door before her with empty eyes. It wasn't as if she stood there in hope that the door would reopen and he would come back out to her. 

His words had been a clear enough indication to her that he hated her now. And that was the thing about love wasn't it-  _because if there was one thing, one thing, she was sure of it was that he had loved her, just as she had done him-_ it turned so quickly into hate. She should know this best of all. 

Tired- bone-weary- of standing before his door she exclaimed: "Well I guess the romance is dead" into the silence. The sound of her voice created a slight echo in the marble staircase. She turned on her heels and proceeded to leave the building. 

The air outside was crisp and had the humid smell of decay so characteristic of autumn. It was high evening and soon she wouldn't be able to see her hand before her eyes in the darkness. Despite this she still didn't quicken her step to get home. 

She more like dragged herself to her house. As if she had been in a boxing match and she had lost badly. And now she was left to return home, broken.

Her feet were in auto-programme and they didn't stop taking one weary step after the other. They walked her home without stopping. They didn's stop when she heard her mother's voice call out to her and demand to know where she had been the whole day.

They only stopped when she collapsed on the bed and there remained.

* * *

_She is visiting her father in London while looking at Unis._

_She knows her mother still hopes that she will return to Cambridge and join the University's Philharmonica, Her mother still expects that of her. But lately Clara has found herself more and more interested in the medical profession and Mrs. Carson- her guidance teacher- had told her that she would be more than qualified, both academically and emotionally, to becoming a doctor._

_And she quite likes Imperial College after looking through the British universities with the best medicine course._

_She knows her mother wouldn't approve as no one had ever been able to deviate the plans she had set in place for her daughter since an early age. But then she supposes that her mother disapproves of this entire visit: looking at unis for medicine while visiting her father and his wife and their one-year-old son._

_Her mother had not even driven her to the train station to get the train to London._

_She leaves Imperial college through the main entrance- a modern, glass building- and her phone starts to ring. Her lips quirk up a fraction of an inch when she hears her boyfriend's scottish lilt. He asks her how the open day at the university was. She proceeds to tell him everything. He has been surprisingly supportive of her moving to London and pursuing her interests._

_She hadn't expected it of him to be truly honest. If there is one thing Stevie wants it is to be with her and he had received his acceptance letter last week from Edinburgh to study Economics. She thought that he would have demanded her to be with him._

_Big was her surprise when he picked her up from her home and drove her to the train station and told her that he hoped she would find what she wanted in London._

_She didn't expect him to be supportive. But he is._

_She is just leaving a coffee shop with a scalding cup of tea in her previously free hand while telling her boyfriend excitedly about the lab facilities she had viewed when she felt someone bump into her._

_She gives a pained outcry when the hot contents of her cup poured itself over her top. She grits her teeth as the hot liquid burned her skin. From the other end of the line she hears Stevie ask her worriedly what happened._

_She pays him no mind. At first because she is focused on the pain generating from her abdomen. And then because when she looks up at the culprit her heart_  literally  _stops._

_He has changed in appearance. He was leaner and his hair was cut in a different manner that she had thought he would never cut his hair in. And all this changes were maybe because he will work in a TV show. But she would still always recognize his blue eyes._

_And from the widening of them she knows that he recognizes her as well._

_Stevie is talking in her ear but she mutters a mindless: "I'll talk to you later" before she hangs up on him without waiting for his answer and puts her phone away._

_And then they are standing in front of each other. It's been three years since she last saw him._

_She starts- otherwise they would be left standing there in the middle of the pavement in Hyde Park looking at each other for the rest of eternity: "Hello Ricky."_

* * *

She flinched when her phone-  _his phone-_ starts ringing beneath her pillow in the middle of the night. She took the vibrating device from beneath her pillow case and looked at the display. There was no surprise when she saw his number. It was only he and she who know about this phone and there is no one else who would call her.

She looked at the diplay showing his name while her finger hovered over the answering button. She wanted to pick it up and listen to what he has to say.

Yet she worried that he would accuse her. That he would shout with her over the phone and tell her again that she had ruined his life. She worried about the hate he would express to her. She couldn't gather her courage to pick up his call.

So she let him ring and ring. And she didn't pick up his call.    

* * *

_His flat is nice and modern and well-decorated and she supposes that he did well here in the South. She knows that he did so. She changes into one of his white shirts that is much too large on her five feet two frame before she joins him in the kitchen as he makes them tea._

_He insisted that she come with him to his flat after they had both somewhat recovered from the surprise of running into each other. He stated that she could clean up at his flat, which was just round the corner from where they had run into each other, and he would make them tea. It was the least he could do. She was reluctan at first and determined to decline his offer but he had stated in no unclear terms that he wouldn't let her go. Not now when he had found her._

_And she went with him._

_"You live in London now," he asks her and it is almost casual as he pours them tea into two grey mugs and hands one to her. She shakes her head and she sees his shoulders slump slightly which makes her take back her assumption that his question had been casual. Then she adds: "Maybe come October." He looks at her and she explains: "I've been looking at unis. I'm going to study medicine."_

_His lips start to lift into a smile and then he whispers: "It suits you. You've always been smart and caring."  His arms are crossed out on the table and he asks her: "What if London doesn't work out? Where are you going then?" She shrugs her shoulders and states: "Probalby Edinburgh with Stevie." His face literally falls as she states this and the air becomes frosty with their silence._

_He is looking down at the content of his mug and raising a brow he finally breaks the silence when he asks: "So you are with him now?" She only nods her head in confirmation. He raises his mug to his mouth and before taking a sip he smirks bitterly and spits: "Seems like the boy won, then."_

_She rises from her seat, her tea left undrunk and without uttering a polite 'excuse me'. She doesn't want to listen to his words, to his accusations. She can't stand another minute of it._

_She picks up her bag and walks towards the entrance. And just as she is about to push down the doorhandle to let herself out, she feels his warm palm- much bigger than hers- cover her hands and he closes the door again._

_And then he is leaning into her and after seeing the incensed look in her eyes, he sighs and leans down to rest his forehead on hers and he whispers: "No." His adam's apple bobs and he asks her: "Don't leave."_

_They are standing close, so very close and despite knowing better, her free arm comes to rest around his waist and she pushes herself closer to him. Her words contradict her actions as she says: "Love's not a competition." He shakes his head and resting his hand of her cheek he looks at her with his head tilted- his forehead not leaving hers. Then he whispers: "Just imagine it was. Am I winning?"_

_She doesn't answer him. Not with words anyways._

_She captures his lips with hers and they are locked in a kiss._

* * *

He wouldn't stop calling her. 

The phone vibrated now constantly. 

She would have been able to ignore it hadn't it been for the fact that he after the first few calls that were left unanswered he proceeded to leave her voice messages. And she was forced to listen to all of them.

It had started with him simply telling her to pick up the phone because he wanted to talk to her. Seeing that his request remained unanswered, he then proceeded to start accusing her like she had expected him to. For him to tell her that the least she owed him was to answer his calls considering the way she had ruined his life. Every poison-filled word was like a dagger to her heart.

She still didn't answer him.

Seeing that he remained ineffective, he then became more frantic. His calls started to concentrate at nighttime and each time he called her, his words sounded more slurred and his sentences became less and less connected.

And then eventually one night at midnight he was calling her and she didn't pick up and then his drunken words filled the room: "Clara... My Clara... My impossible girl. Please... Pick up... I need... I want... I love..." And then it all became too much for her and she pressed the answering button and sobbed: "Stop calling me for pity's sake." He sputtered on the other end of the line and exclaimed: "Clara! Wait, don't hang up..." She shook her head and remembering that he couldn't see her, she hissed: "I don't want to talk. Please stop calling me. If you have an inch of care for me in your heart." And then she hung up on him.

He still called.

She disposed off the phone.

* * *

_They finally talk when they are naked and covered in a sheen of sweat and he is holding her in his arms._

_They finally talk about everything that had been building between them since she was fifteen._

_He explains to her that part of the reason why he had been so fascinated about her since the beginning was that he had never come across someone like her and that in that dreaded town of Leeds she was someone completely different. And that he needed the respite she offered him._

_And then he had overheard her singing at the Philharmonica and he was a goner._

_He had hated her at the start and at the end, because he couldn't stand the feelings she had invoked in him._

_They talk about everything. Yet Clara can't help thinking that it is wasted._

_Because she knows that they can only be with each other and hold each other in the frenzied darkness of his room and that come morning the memories would become their lives' oasis._

_They talk._

_But she still leaves in the morning._

* * *

School restarted in November. 

She was sitting in her usual seat on a dreary monday morning. She wondered if her classmates could hear her heart beating in her chest- it had never been that fast or that frantic before. 

She ignored Stevie's sideway glances at her. 

The door to the class opened and instead of their blue-eyed teacher, their headmaster came in and Clara felt like fainting. 

She had been waiting for this- the moment when she would be confronted for what had happened. And now it was here. And she could only hope that the headmaster wouldn't publically expose her. At least not right now. That he would be so kind as to offer her some respite before he completely ruined her. 

The man stood infront of the classroom and he opened his mouth and Clara closed her eyes as if she was just about to be shot at. The man's voice filled the empty classroom as he announced: "Dear Class, I will be taking over your attendance duties until the end of term. Mr. Wilson has found an employment opportunity elsewhere." 

Clara felt like she had been hit by lightning. The headmaster proceeded to call out the names of the students in his nasally voice and his accusations just wouldn't come. 

And then she realized that for whatever reason it wouldn't come. And he wouldn't come. And a deep sadness and weariness filled her bones.

No one except for Stevie noticed as she laid down her head on her table, the worn wood becoming moist beneath her face.

He came to her later at night, climbing through the window. He excused himself for coming in announced but that he'd been left with no other choice. And explained to her that his band had been signed and he'd be moving to London tomorrow. 

He came to tell her goodbye and when she asked him why, he explained that it had been her he had been thinking about when his band got signed. And that it was her he thought about even before breathing. 

And at his confession, she threw every caution to the wind. 

And everywhere he touched her, her skin felt as if on fire.

She did ask him to stay, to wait for her. But the plea was empty because he wouldn't accept it. And even if he did she wouldn't want him to.  

Later before he climbed out the window, he told her: "All my life I have done things wrong. Now it's time for me to do one thing right." He looked at her sadly and whispered: "But for what it's worth, you will always be my most favorite regret."

* * *

_She still thinks about him._

_Sometimes._

_It has been years since she has settled down in a comfortable life: A small detached house in an Edinburg suburb, a white picket fence, a small family practice and her husband._

_Her life is calm and comfortable._

_And this is how she wants it to be._

_It wouldn't have worked out. He was much to restless, like a taper in a blowing wind._

_And she was always too damaged for something as erratic as her life would have been with him._

_She is content._

_Yet when the monotony of her life starts to catch up to her, when both her and her husband turn off the lights to go to sleep, she will think back to the time she was fifteen._

_She will close her eyes and remember._

_She thinks about him._

_Sometimes._

    

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The very last chapter. I'm completely worn out after writing this. I have no words. Nope. Just... Thank you for everyone who reviewed and enjoyed and stuck through the story with me and please tell me what you thouhght.   
> Love, Maria


	17. Announcement

Important announcement everyone: I couldn't leave the Ricky/Clara fandom alone for too long. The first chapter from the companion piece to this story is up and is titled "Letters To Her". 

It's a bit different from everything I have written before and I would really appreciate it if you guys checked it out and told me what you thought. 

Love, Maria

 


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